STURBRIDGE – As Uxbridge junior Carl Gallawan approached the finish line at the South Worcester County League cross country championship meet last month, he noticed something odd happening.

“I saw a Millbury kid going the complete opposite way when I was finishing,” Gallawan said during a team practice following the race. “I said ‘uh, oh,’ that’s funny,’ ’cause I know I passed him a while ago and I’m like ‘how are you already at the finish line, but you’re running the wrong direction.’ That was one of many red flags that day.”

When he did cross the finish, Gallawan then noticed two of the league’s best runners, his teammate Aiden Ross and Northbridge’s Marcus Reilly, had not completed the race. He had no idea he was in second. 

Gallawan smiled as he recounted his unbelievable finish. “I assumed I was in fourth until somebody told me, ‘Hey, you’re second right now!’ And

Northbridge High School sophomore Marcus Reilly. Photo by Kevin Paul Saleeba

I said, ‘what do you mean I’m second? What about our top guy and Northbridge’s top guy?’ Then they tell me, ‘Yeah, we haven’t seen them go by yet.’ What do you mean you haven’t seen them go by yet?” 

Gallawan then turned to his friend, Nevan Kelley from Grafton, who finished a second behind in third place. “I was talking to my buddy and I said ‘hey, you got third!’ And he goes, ‘what do you mean I got third? I should be in fifth!’ We both talked and laughed about it. I guess that’s the way it goes.”

Regardless of the poor markings along the Old Sturbridge Village 2.9-mile race route, it turned out that Ross and several other runners were disqualified for going the wrong way allowing others to slide up the ranks. This was Gallawan’s best finish at the SWCL meet, which saw Camden Foley of Tantasqua edging out Gallawan by five seconds to take first.

“You could easily get lost,” Gallawan said. “There’s at least two to three intersections that aren’t well marked. One, in particular, wasn’t marked at all, period! And it was a split. You had to know if you were going straight ‘cause if you went right, there were no cones there or no arrows. If you didn’t go straight, you’d end up somewhere over there, but for the most part I knew where I was going just because that’s how I ran my warm up.” 

Along with the poor markings, the terrain of the course was also a challenge for the runners as they had to contend with several rocks and tree roots sticking up along the path. Gallawan said he had some familiarity with the course, which helped him. “I walked the first loop with my coach and then I ran the second loop, as my warm up with another one of my teammates,” he said. “I kinda credit that’s why I didn’t get lost.”

Uxbridge’s chance to win the overall team championship was put in jeopardy when Ross was eventually disqualified for running off course. However, the rest of his Uxbridge teammates stepped up as three Spartans finish in the top ten, including Gallawan with a time of 16:26.8 for second; sophomore Lincoln Schiller with a time of 16:36.2 for fourth; and sophomore Tyler Bergman with a time of 17:38.4 which was good for eighth. These finishes propelled Uxbridge to their fifth straight title.

Uxbridge junior Carl Gallawan at a recent practice. Photo by Kevin Paul Saleeba

“None of us expected to lose our top runner,” Gallawan said. “That’s why you have to race as if the team absolutely depends on you. The next meet, it could be me who gets out or it could be any other runner, so we have to race as if the entire team is counting on us and we did that.”

Nobody on the team knew that they lost their top runner until they hit the homestretch toward the finish line. That’s when the panic started for some. “I was coming down and I heard from [Gallawan] that Aiden got lost,” Bergman said. “And he said, ‘you need to pass these next two Tantasqua runners or we could lose.’ So, I kind of panicked there. I think at that point I was about like ninth or tenth-ish. I was coming down and you do a loop before you hit the finish and I see all those people and my coach tell me Aiden got lost and we could lose. I didn’t want that to happen … I really was sprinting towards the end. I think that was probably the hardest finish I ever had. I was really gassed.”

Schiller said it was a crazy race, but their goal as a team was to treat it like any other race. “It was muddy, slippery, and wet … It was kind of just like a run and gun situation. It was kind of a free-for-all … We went about it like a normal race where it’s just about catching the other guy in front of you and trying to get to as many places as possible.”

Ross, who has dominated every race this season, including victories at the MSTCA Frank Kelley and Bay State Invitationals in October, said he did not mind being disqualified as long as his team won.

“It felt awesome,” Ross said. “It’s nice to see everyone get across the line. We were kind of panicking ‘cause we didn’t know right away if we won until the results came out. You never know, but I heard everyone was in a good spot. I figured that at the very least it was going to be close, but yeah, it was awesome … Once we realized it didn’t really matter if I scored, I was happy ‘cause all that mattered to me was that we won as a team. I really didn’t care about my result after that.”

Along with Foley’s individual title for Tantasqua with a time of 16:21.7, his teammates also made the top ten. Senior Dylan Thompson placed seventh with a time of 17:37.6 and sophomore Avery Michalak placed ninth with a time of 17:45.5. These performances helped the Warriors place second in the team standings with 45 points.

Kelley ran a 16:27.3 for third for Grafton; Reilly ran a 17:13.1 for fifth for Northbridge; Leicester’s Jason Fournier placed sixth with a time of 17:32.9; and Marcus’ brother, Dylan Reilly rounded out the top ten with his time of 17:58.2.

 

Team standing: 

  1. Uxbridge, 39
  2. Tantasqua, 45
  3. Auburn, 95
  4. Grafton, 98
  5. Northbridge, 149
  6. Millbury, 154
  7. Leicester, 159
  8. Southbridge, 256
  9. Quaboag, 257.

 

Top Ten Individual Results:

  1. Camden Foley, Tantasqua, 16:21.7
  2. Carl Gallawan, Uxbridge, 16:26.8
  3. Nevan Kelley, Grafton, 16:27.3
  4. Lincoln Schiller, Uxbridge, 16:36.2
  5. Marcus Reilly, Northbridge, 17:13.1
  6. Jason Fournier, Leicester, 17:32.9
  7. Dylan Thompson, Tantasqua, 17:37.6
  8. Tyler Bergman, Uxbridge, 17:38.4
  9. Avery Michalak, Tantasqua, 17:45.5
  10.  Dylan Reilly, Northbridge, 17:58.2.

    Northbridge High School sophomore Marcus Reilly. Photo by Kevin Paul Saleeba