The boys' varsity cross-country team wrapped up its second undefeated regular season on Saturday, October 27^th, with decisive wins over Roxbury Latin, Governor's Academy, and Brooks School.  Their record is now 15-0, counting a win against Tabor Academy along with all the other ISL schools.
 
The team anticipated a strong challenge from a seasoned Roxbury Latin squad, led by league front-runner Joey Mullen, whose dominant performances week after week constituted an impressive record.  But RL had not yet tangled with the Middlesex boys, and Joey had not met the "new" Viraj Deokar.  Although the ISL Championship race takes place this coming Friday, and the runners were concerned about recovery time, the moment seemed right – its being Parents' Day and a beautiful afternoon – to show some strength.

 The contest at the front of the race was pretty intense at the start, but by the time the boys crossed the Circle for the last half-mile of the run, Viraj had taken a commanding lead, eventually crossing the line at 16:18, a full 20 seconds ahead of Mullen.  Moreover, the rest of the team caught Viraj's fire, capturing places 3 (Peter Howe), 4 (Lucas Estrada), 6 (Gavin Fujimori), and 9 (Miles Petrie), for a 19-36 victory over RL and near-shut-outs over Governors and Brooks.
 The JV race also saw some highlight performances, with the team once again led by Eric Dolce, who almost single-handedly battled against a formidable pack of RL harriers.  Though Eric held the top spot for most of the race, he was overtaken in the last 400 meters by RL stand-out Cole Garvey.   Even so, Eric finished with the excellent new PR of 18:46, a time that would have put him ahead of 14 (non-Middlesex) finishers in the varsity race.

 The rest of the JV delivered notable performances, though some of them were still recovering from autumn colds.  Tristan Collins, Matt Kafker, Matt McKenna, and Justin Phinney solidified Middlesex wins over Governors and Brooks, while Jack Yoon and Rock Hoffman once again displayed a lot of promise as part of the rising sophomore group.

Also notable in Saturday's race was the fact that all but one member of the team participated in the races, some finally ready to "race" for the first time.  Among this group Khoa Phan , Will Hetz, Julian Blatt (actually, Julian is now a 2-race veteran), and Hyun Seong Choi marked the beginning of what one hopes will be an ongoing commitment to competitive running.