Foxborough Cross Country Loses to Canton

After one meet, Foxboro cross-country knows where they stand. The demand is simple from Foxboro Coach Kim Giannouloudis. 

“I want improvement,” said Giannouloudis.

Despite a couple of good times from both teams, the Warriors fell to the Canton Bulldogs 27-31 while the Canton girls were able to achieve a perfect score winning 15-50.

On the boys side first place went to Brendan Sullivan. The All-Hock runner finished the 5K course with a time of 17:18 to the delight of coach Giannouloudis.

“Great time. Great runner. Hard worker. He’s got it all,” said Giannouloudis.

Not far behind was first time XC runner Kevin Aldrich. The junior capped off his cross-country debut with a time of 18:10.

“He’s my surprise runner. I think he is going to come out and surprise a lot of people," said Giannouloudis.

Despite getting the top two times, Canton did their most damage going after Foxboro’s third runner Dean Mazzola. Fighting off a 1-3 sweep by Foxboro that would lock up a Warrior win, the Bulldogs got three guys across the line before Mazzola.

“We knew they had a very strong top group. We had to get several members ahead of their three, four, and five. We made a conscious effort that we need to work in packs and we needed to attack them in groups,” said Canton boys head coach Chris Elga.

Kevin O’Donnell of Canton was the first Bulldog to finish with a third place finish at 19:09. Not too far behind was Dave Rosenberg whose time of 19:34 was good enough for 4th place. The 2 finishes alone were good enough to get a close 4-point win for the Bulldogs.

In the girl’s race, it was all Canton. With all 7-varsity runners placing 1-7, the Bulldogs found themselves with a perfect score of 15 in what ended up being a good day for the Bulldogs.          

“That’s big time. Today we wanted to get on a roll. Wanted to start everything off fresh and we did that big time today by sweeping,” said Canton girls coach Ben Mattson.

Eleni Papadopoulos crossed the finish line first for the Bulldogs with a time of 22:24. Not far behind was Kelsey Sayers with a time of 23:06.         

Kayla Sepe was the first Foxboro to finish with a time of 25:21 that was good enough for 11th place. Jacqueline Bailey came in shortly after with a time of 25:46

“She’s (Jacqueline) got the drive, motivation, and skill to run fast,“ said Giannouloudis.

After the opening meet, Both Foxboro teams find themselves with a 0-1 record while Canton’s Cross Country teams are 1-0

Next up for the Bulldogs will be a meet with the Sharon Eagles. Both teams will travel to Deborah Sampson Park next Tuesday Sept. 20 for a 3:45pm race. The Warriors will face the Stoughton Black Knights also on Sept. 20. Race time is 3:30pm.