Sports: Belmont Girls X-C Qualify for All-States, Brams 8th at EMass

Photo: Over the top of the hill with Belmont’s Leah Brams. (credit for all photos: Milesplits.com)

A spirited effort from the entire squad of runners resulted in Belmont High School Girls’ Cross Country qualifying for the state championships as the team placed 4th in the Div. 3 Eastern Massachusetts Championships held at the Wrentham Development Center on Saturday, Nov. 14.

The result will see the entire team head to Westfield for the All-States championships next Saturday, Nov. 21.

It has been 15 years since Belmont last qualified for the championships.

But it was close: if the five Belmont harriers had each placed just one spot lower at the finish, the team would have missed out of their chance to make a mark at the big stage.

Belmont finished 4th overall with 177 points, just four points ahead of Oliver Ames. The Marauders’ were only 14 points from second place Hopkinton.

Leading the way for the Marauders was four-year star Leah Brams who finished 8th in 19 minutes, 38.5 seconds in the highly competitive race over 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) won by Abigail Long from Bishop Feehan High School in 18:23.4.

It was the impressive runs by Belmont’s middle four runners that put the Marauders into the finals.

Junior Sara Naumann and freshman Audrey Christo ran together for the race, finishing 27th and 28th in 20:16.5 and 20:16.6 while solid points grabber senior Sophia Klimasmith ran one of her best races of the season, finishing about 100 yards behind Naumann and Christo in 41st in 20:29.0.

Belmont’s final scorer was senior Meredith Hughes who came in 78th in 21:20.1. Non-scorers included sophomore Camilla Carere (95th in 22:05.7) and senior Emma Chambers 22:32.7 for 109th).

A video of the race’s highlights can be seen here. Brams can be seen finishing at the 8:10 min. mark with Naumann and Christo sprinting home at the 8:46 mark.

Belmont’s Boys’ finished 26th with 764 points led by senior Mike Ferrante 18:49.5 for 120th followed by fellow senior Ian Bowe in 138th in 19:18.4 then Gavin Li and freshman Kai Takayama in 20:31.6 and 20:32.4 (166th and 167th) with sophomores Connor Quinn and Elias Dionne in 172nd and 173th.