On September 22, the boys varsity cross country team took part in the 2018 Bull Run Invitational at Hereford HIgh School. Linganore recorded an 8th place finish with a score of 251 points and a 6th place finish from senior Michael Belmaggio (16:31).

The team ran into problems early with senior Ben Dill starting the race sick. Dill said, “Even though I’m sick, I have to run for the team today.”

Ben Dill did just that running a time of 18:40, 20 seconds slower than his previous time at the 2017 state meet even while suffering from an illness.

Senior Will Cioffi ran a 17:17 at the meet but was disappointed because he had not been able to catch Oakdale runner Kyle. Cioffi said, “[It was a] very disappointing performance.”

Rival Oakdale only managed a 10th place finish with the absence of Colin Dempsey due to injury.

Senior Gunnar Eklund, recovering from injury, ran an 18:42 on the day, a good step towards later season races. Seniors

Allejah Seraton and Ben Rose both ran the historically difficult course for their first time. Allejah ran a time of 18:52 and Ben Rose ran a time of 22:59. Senior Allejah said, “My biggest problem was my lack of experience.”

This biggest obstacle at Hereford is the long, steep hill twice in the race.  Ben Rose said, “I was doing so well until the last quarter mile. Then I died.”

For a lot of runners on the team, this was their first experience on the course. Freshman Marty Ratchford had issues in the start saying, “It was like a wall. I couldn’t get past anyone at the start.”

Hereford annually hosts the state championship. Running the course was a good experience for the young runners who won’t be lining up for the state meet this year, but they will be in the future. Linganore looks to use the race result as a building block for the state meet on November 11th.