Lynn Cross Country meet growing

LYNN – There is perhaps no better cross-country race for local high school runners than the Lynn Invitational Meet which was held on Friday afternoon at the Lynn Woods.View Photo GalleryNow in its second year under the direction of St. Mary’s coach Dom Finelli, the Spartans, along with Lynn Classical and Lynn Tech have come together for the early season meet. After another successful go-round, Finelli is hoping to make the event “an annual outing.”This is our second year doing this and it has been a terrific experience thus far,” said Finelli. “The same three schools have participated the past two years but I am hoping to get every Lynn school involved before long and perhaps some others as well.”One such consideration would be Saugus who Finelli extended an invitation to that couldn’t be fulfilled. “We have still had an excellent number of runners come out, but it would obviously be great to see an increase in participants.”Finelli helped build the St. Mary’s program from the ground up after resurrecting the team three years ago after a lengthy hiatus. The Spartans had about 45 participants this year, which included a batch of middle school athletes.For the Spartans, the race serves as a pre-season warm-up for the CCL League Meet which will be held later this fall. Three separate races are run, those being divided into a boys and girls varsity race as well as a co-ed novice/middle school race.”The varsity race is 2.86 miles and obviously has the more experienced runners,” said Finelli of the day’s set-up. “When we started this event, I figured it would be smart to shorten the novice race to 1.67 miles to kind of ease the new runners and younger kids into the sport.”A quadrant of Spartans took home first place honors this year including Matt McManus (18:14) and Sarah Corbett (22:52) who won their respective varsity races. The novice/middle school race saw Anthony Delvecchio (13:46) and Colleen Ohsbar finish in first for their genders.Lynn Tech’s Carlos Batres (20:23) and Classical’s Elias Bayas (20:32) finished sixth and seventh respectively in the boys race while Classical’s Erin Daly placed fourth (34:46) in the girls race.Perhaps the most impressive part about the event is camaraderie that is evident from the second it starts. Everyone being from the same city means that nearly everyone knows one another and the support shown amongst the competitors, coaches and fans is truly amazing.The day’s biggest story was one of an overwhelming inspiration by the name of Cameron Marr, a St. Mary’s runner. Marr suffered a brain injury at a very young age and has been working extremely hard at running.”Cameron is a special kid and seeing him compete today was amazing,” said Finelli. “He defines what this sport is all about, dedication and the drive to succeed.”Finelli plans to nominate Marr for the MIAA award given to student-athletes who have overcome hardships.The success of the event for a second straight year has Finelli excited about the future of the Invitational and proud of what has already come of it.”It really is quite special,” explained Finelli. “Everyone encourages each other and pushes one another to succeed and that’s why adding other towns and cities would be great.” He continued, “I see it as a chance to create bonds, that’s what’s great about this sport.”