Having purchased a house in Ashland, then Lexington High School boys’ cross country coach Aaron Ladd, was looking for work closer to home. Luckily for him, the Holliston boys’ cross country job had become available, and Ladd looked at it as an opportunity where he could build a program up from scratch. However, to do so, he’d have to make some adjustments to his way of coaching.
“I’ve implemented some things that are different than what they are used to, such as good distance running, where we are building endurance,” the new Panther Coach said. “There is a good group of returning athletes mixed in with some younger runners, and although we have yet to have a meet, I can see the potential, but really don’t know what to expect.”
Ladd will rely heavily on his two senior captains in Tim Strang and Liam Malloy to help him through the transition period. Strang, along with junior Liam Engell are Holliston’s top two runners as the season nears. Two other returning athletes that should lend a hand are junior Mike Belger and sophomore Ethan Vaz Falco.
“These five give us a nice group of runners that should be able to run together. It’s still early, but I’m hoping that they can run each meet as a pack; so far it seems to be working,” Ladd said. “Realistically, we’ll have to wait to see how the season goes. It’s a rather unique situation that we have five talented runners returning to give us some stability on the course. Looking at last year’s race statistics, Tim and Liam should be our best runners this fall.”
In addition to the five returning runners Ladd has a total team of 19 athletes that include 5 freshman and a handful of newcomers who came out late. First year cross country runner and senior Satchel Snow, a member of both the indoor and outdoor track teams, decided he wanted to give cross country a try before he graduated.
“So far, Satchel has shown good endurance running distance, now we’ve just got to get him used to running 5K’s,” the Coach said. “It’s not a very easy sport to go out and run hard for 16-18 minutes.”
Freshman Sasha Brown could be a diamond in the rough for Ladd. Brown was a solid middle school runner last year and has been keeping pace with the top runners throughout practice.
Entertaining schools from within the Tri Valley League is an unfamiliar area for the new Panther Coach, but that’s not going to stop him from getting his team ready to run.
“I know nothing about the league being a first-year Coach,” Ladd said. “I’m looking at long term goals. Over the past few years, Holliston has had a tough time in dual meets, but with the leadership it has returning this fall we should be able to be competitive in the league, as well as the States.”
Improvement is what the new Coach is looking for from his runners. He wants to prepare them mentally as well as physically and hopefully things will coincide where the team peaks later in the season so that it can make a run at the State Title.