Team History

The BART Cross Country Team was started in 2009 by then Coach Lynn. A recreational runner from Pittsfield, she helped motivate a dozen students to take up running, culminating with a couple local road races (Memorial Day 5k in Lenox and the Jolly Jaunt 10k in Adams). In 2010 it was decided that BART would debut its first official team, and began competing in the fall cross country program with Coach Lynn and then Assistant Coach Griffin. The following season in 2011, Coach Griffin took over as acting coach and maintained a small, but loyal following of cross country runners. It was at the end of the 2011-2012 school year that an active recruitment was begun to build the team. Practices were expanded to 5 days a week, and the team saw a flurry of new recruits. Though the 2012 team only returned 4 runners from previous seasons, it remains the school's largest, at a total of 26 runners. Both boys' and girls' records fell multiple times and the highlight of the season was the boys's resounding win over Drury at the last dual meet of the season, with the girls' coming within :12 seconds and 1 point of a win themselves.

The team grew in 2013 to include as many as 43 students in grades 6-12. We saw real dual meet victories and loads of PRs fall during the season. Many runners said the highlight of the season was competing at Northfield Mountain Ski Resort for the Western Massachusetts Cross Country Championships.

The 2015 season was perhaps the strongest season in school history. Heather Perkins led the girls' team to BART's first championship, going undefeated in all races. Heather Perkins won the RVAL championship race outright at White Oak's home course, running a 21:38 and beating out a stellar field. The girls' placed 4 runners in the top 9. Other runners included: Simira Hanger (4th) in 22:09, Grace Krzanik (6th) in 22:52, and Maya Gayle (9th) in 23:51. These four rank as the top 4 fastest girls in school history. On the boys' side, the boys finished with a mixed season, taking their best finish in RVAL history with a 3rd place finish at championships. Mark Borelli led the team with his 6th place finish in 18:33. Thomas Cook had a respectable race in 12th place in a time of 19:19. Look for them to make a splash in 2016!

2016 was a rough year with a major loss on the girls side (Heather Perkins) who previously led the whole girls and was a strong leader and racer since joining in 2013. The season was looking fair. The boys were training to be a 3rd place team and the girls solidly had 2nd place throughout the whole season. Championships was at BART's home course and boys continued to get 3rd at the final race of the season, a significant margin behind Dublin and the small but impressive 3 in the top 6 performance led Four Rivers to an easy win. Girls had one of the most heartbreaking finishes, with 4 of their normal top 5 having a rough day and then fell back out of their normal spot. And due to an unfortunate slip and fall in the woods by a BART girl, the one SBS girl that they had to hold onto for the win, passed them and rival SBS took home 2nd place by a heartbreaking 2 points even though the BART girls had easily dominated second place throughout the season. But not all hope was lost, because not every year will be a winning year and sometimes you have to take a year to be humbled and then work hard to grow.

But we grew as a team, adding the fantastic Abby Beagle Bird Parker, Viviana Lanphear, and Amelia Solar-Sola, all young 6th grade girls filled with potential.

2017 was the year that the BART team (especially girls) was fierce and the strongest we've ever been in program history. The first race of the season was at BART home course and we took home double wins for boys and girls which had never happened before. We were fierce and excited but we had a target on our backs to step it up and maintain a strong season. In the coming races, boys dropped down to 2nd place respectively which was still a program record. Championships rolled around and SBS was closing hard on the girls and Four Rivers was sprinting hard at the boys to take 2nd place. But we prevailed, and we were able to hold off both SBS and Four Rivers. Girls went an impressive undefeated and boys had come out with a record best.