BY ROGER CLEAVELAND
The Naugatuck boys cross country team remained undefeated and established itself as the team to beat for the Naugatuck Valley League championship Tuesday with three more wins, including a 27-29 victory over strong contender Watertown, at Hop Brook Dam.
Grady Beasley won the race in a time of 17:32 with teammate Dave Kerns finishing second to improve the Greyhounds to 14-0 this season.
Despite the fact that Watertown runners Spencer Dodge, Trevor Gursky, Connor Croke and Tyler Roger finished third through sixth, the Greyhounds showed even greater depth. Their final three scorers in the meet — Luis Garces, Brandon Thomas and Elliot Via — finished seventh through ninth. And while Ross Via didn’t score for Naugy, by finishing 10th ahead of Watertown’s fifth and final scorer, he gave the Greyhounds the breathing room they needed.
“The race was a lot more competitive than I thought it was going to be,” Beasley said. “Coming into the 2-mile mark, I heard that there were four Watertown kids right up behind me and Dave (Kerns). We knew we couldn’t let anyone get ahead of us, so we just pushed as hard as possible.
“We were hoping to divide (the Watertown runners) up a little bit more, but our guys all fell behind a little bit. But they still all came in right behind each other. Even our No. 6 runner caught up with them, so the pack helped us out a lot.”
The win also helps the Greyhounds out a lot in their quest to defend as NVL champions. It gives them an edge over both Woodland (12-2) and Watertown (12-2) going into the NVL Championships a week from today.
“It puts a lot of weight on their shoulders going into the NVLs and less on ours,” Beasley said. “We are still going to go in as hard as possible to win it.”
In the girls race, Watertown picked up wins over Naugatuck, Torrington and Waterbury Career Academy behind strong races from race winner Bethany Ottowitz (21:07) and third-place finisher Sophia Guerrera. The other three Indians scorers were Nicole DeFeo, Alli Battaglino and Abby Baker.
“I was just trying to finish strong and get a good race in today with a strong start and be consistent until the end,” Ottowitz said. “That is the way I like to plan it so I don’t have to worry about making up ground in the end.”
Nobody caught her. Torrington’s Ariana Santos finished 22 seconds behind her, and then Guerrera turned in a time of 21:38 to give the Indians a great start.
The closest team to Watertown was Naugatuck, but the Indians prevailed, 21-40, in head-to-head scoring.
Like the Naugy boys, the Watertown girls (13-1) have great quality depth, and it really showed once again on Tuesday. The Indians also finished fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth in the race as Nicole DeFeo, Alli Battaglino, Abby Baker and Rebekah Holmes all came in right after one another in a nice tight pack.
“They are like really good,” Guerrera said. “They are like a huge pack, and they are really good at staying with each other. They push each other throughout the race, and their times are getting better and better. They are really good at when one person in the pack moves the rest go with her. They move as a unit, which is great.
“And Bethany has a great start and gets out really far, and then I kind of bring up the rear for her, and then our pack brings it in for us. It’s great.”