Canton High winter athletes shine at state meets

By Jay Turner

It was a banner weekend for many of Canton High School’s top winter athletes, with members of the wrestling, swimming and indoor track teams all collecting medals at their respective state championship meets.

Two Bulldog stars — senior wrestler Ruairi Ritson and junior swimmer Annie McLean — came heartbreakingly close to an individual state title and both took home silvers, while a third, senior track standout Katie Oliver, earned a well-deserved bronze with a personal-best performance in the long jump.

CHS junior swimmer Annie McLean

Another four Canton athletes also finished their day on the podium as state medalists, and several others finished among the top 10 in their events.

In the team standings, the CHS girls swimmers combined for the highest finish among the three programs, placing 12th out of 44 participating schools at the Division 2 Championships at MIT with a total of 75 points (awarded to the top 16 finishers, up to 20 points for individual events and 40 for relays).

A good chunk of those points were attributable directly to McLean, who not only dazzled with a runner-up finish in the 100-yard butterfly but also took sixth out of 31 swimmers in the 50-yard freestyle. In both events she bested her seed time, recording new PRs of 56.64 and 24.87 seconds, respectively — both elite marks for a high school swimmer.

McLean also went on to swim the fastest leg in two state relays: the 200 freestyle, which placed ninth behind a group that also included Olivia Hickey, Keeley Harney and Julianne Gilchrist, and the 200 medley, which took 11th behind Atina Lee, Harney, McLean and Hickey.

Harney, a senior captain, was Canton’s other standout performer at Saturday’s D2 meet, capping her four-year Bulldog career with a seventh-place medal in the 100 freestyle to go along with a solid showing in the 100-yard backstroke (14th out of 31 swimmers). Just one week earlier, Harney combined with McLean to win five medals at the Girls South Sectional meet, giving them a total haul of eight this postseason.

“They’re both so hardworking and dedicated to their sport,” head coach Cheryl Cavanaugh said of her two all-star swimmers. “Keeley will be greatly missed but is starting another chapter as she’ll be swimming in college. We’re lucky to have Annie coming back next year as one our captains, along with Julianne Gilchrist and Maegan Horrigan.”

Also wrapping up a strong season for the Bulldogs at the D2 state swim meet was Atina Lee, who placed 26th in the backstroke and competed in two relays, including the 400 freestyle along with Hickey, Gilchrist and Caitlyn Reynolds.

In the boys’ competition held one day later at MIT, senior Talis Veidis finished on a high note with a pair of personal-best swims in both the 50 and 100 freestyles. He also competed in the 200 medley relay along with Hunter Rice, Charlie Smith and Daniel Bui. The four seniors were the driving force behind the Bulldogs’ 6-1 season and Cavanaugh said all will be sorely missed.

Also competing in their final state championship meet last weekend were a trio of senior wrestling captains, including postseason veterans Ritson and Max Kupferman along with Anika Valluri, who competed at the Division 2 Girls State meet.

Both competitions were held at Algonquin Regional and all three Canton participants came away with winning records, led by Ritson, who defeated his first three opponents before bowing out in the 190-pound finals to Sam Dean, a senior from Minnechaug Regional.

Ritson, a two-time sectional champion and now two-time state placewinner, will next head to Salem High School to compete at the MIAA All-States, where he will be joined by Kupferman, who is coming off a hard-earned fourth-place finish at states as a No. 6 seed in the 144-pound class.

While he had hoped for a rematch with Aidan Baum — the Milford wrestler who had beaten him the weekend prior in the D2 central finals — Kupferman ran into an early roadblock against Silver Lake’s Justin Vincenti. But he refused to go quietly, ripping off three straight victories in the consolation bracket before losing a close battle with second-seeded Mason Hinshaw of Marblehead in the third-place match.

Valluri, meanwhile, followed a similar path at the Girls State meet, bouncing back from an opening-round defeat with three straight wins of her own to reach the consolation semifinals in the 114-pound division. Together, the three Canton wrestlers combined to go 10-5 against a field featuring the some of the best in their weight class from schools across the commonwealth.

While Ritson and company were busy competing out in Northborough, a large contingent of CHS track athletes made their way to the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston to compete in the Division 3 Indoor Championships.

The girls team, with more than a dozen participants, ended up placing 17^th overall out of more than 30 teams behind medal-winning performances from Oliver, sophomore Nora Giannacopoulos, and senior Lianna Camille.

Oliver’s leap of 17 feet, 4.75 inches in the long jump marked a new career high for her in indoor competition and earned her a spot at the upcoming MIAA Meet of Champions. Giannacopoulos also set a new PR in the 1,000m, smashing her previous best time to finish seventh overall, while Camille took eighth in the 300m.

Chloe Dubuisson also competed in the 300 and finished two spots behind in 10th, and both she and Camille teamed with Giannacopoulos and Lexi Piazza to finish 11th in the 4×400.

In the 4×800 relay, the Canton team of Daphne Golden, Lily Duong, Klara Redquest and Maggie McCready placed 10th out of 20 teams with a season-best time of 10:55.02, while Piazza took 11th out of 30 in the 600m.

Other Canton finishers included Maddie Driscoll in the two-mile (13th), Dubuisson and Oliver in the 55m (16th and 19th), Hoban in the shot put (23rd), and the 4×200 relay team of Kenzie Bennett, Hoban and Diana Tambi (17th).

For the boys team, Canton’s 4×800 relay team of Riley Swearingen, Luke Darling, Pranav Addanki and Parker Allen led the way with a 10th-place finish, posting a season-best time of 8:50.58.

The Bulldogs also competed in the 4×400 and placed 20th behind Christian Hanlon, Mo Arugollu, Ben Weaver and Sam Siegal, while Allen took 29th in the 600m.

Share This Post

Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=122387