HNT Boys Cross Country: Talented Metuchen again aims for postseason success

Whether it’s a burning sun-drenched day or so chilly you want to crawl right back into your warmups, Metuchen boys cross country coach Marty Holleran has a saying—perfect XC weather.

In other words, no excuses. No complaints. Whatever the conditions, suck it up and go.

“It’s a mindset,” the Bulldogs’ Divij Gupta said. “If you’re committed to run outside and you know that your teammates are committed to run outside, you guys can all run outside together and you’ll be fine.” 

Caelan Johnson added, “Basically, if it’s like 95 degrees or if it’s 40 degrees, it’s XC weather. It’s always XC weather.”

Now, they’ll make modifications on certain days, of course, but he notes, “A good XC runner doesn’t complain about that stuff. He can’t control it. He can only control the things you can control. At the end of the day, you got to get the work done. So yeah, XC weather.”

That mantra has served Metuchen well. In 2016, the Bulldogs won the program’s first-ever boys Greater Middlesex Conference championship and their second-straight Group I and Central Group I titles. They hope to again be in the mix with three of the top five runners returning—seniors Jake Beacher, Gupta and Johnson. Also back from the top seven is senior Steven Tang and junior Eddie Malague. The Bulldogs graduated Austin Brooks and Jacob Fracobandiero.

“The kids have put a good summer in,” said Holleran, the longtime and respected Metuchen coach. “Most of the top guys are pretty conscientious about that, so throughout the summer we’ve been getting together and it’s been going very well.”

Capturing the GMC title was especially impressive, considering the Bulldogs are a Group I school based on enrollment. They beat Group IV schools—the highest-enrollment level in cross country—such as East Brunswick, Old Bridge and South Brunswick.

The fact that Metuchen is a small borough and easily navigable from the Forum Theatre on past the train station and down Main Street, makes it an even more tight-knit atmosphere on the team.

“It feels great, honestly, to represent Metuchen, “ Gupta said. “Our whole community. It’s not just our school. We’re like representing our whole town. I’ve grown up in Metuchen. I went to school from first grade until this year, senior year.”

So score one for the little guys. But …

“Once the gun goes off, no one cares about what group you’re in,” Holleran said. “So we don’t look at it that way. We know that those programs are good. They’re well coached. … We don’t worry about how big we are or small we are when the gun goes off. That just doesn’t help you or hurt you. “

What does is whether you put in the miles or not.

“We all try to work together every day,” Gupta said. “It’s more of a collaborative environment between us as opposed to competitive. Like we share leads at practice. We just have fun. We try to push each other so that we can all improve as opposed to just one of us getting better than everybody else.”

Johnson calls the team “like brothers.”

“I think Coach Holleran really sets the bar on us,” Johnson said. “He says if you want to be good as a runner you have to dedicate yourself and you have to dedicate for your teammates and for your school and your town, or you’ll just get embarrassed on the course. So running’s really a disciplined sport that you have to put in work when no one’s watching.”

Talking about dedication, Metuchen typically runs at 6:45 a.m. during the summer. Try getting most high school kids on their break to wake up that early, let alone for a six mile or so run. Johnson notes that having the discipline to train is about respecting your opponents and respecting yourself.

“I think you’re building character,” Johnson said. “So every time you wake up and you run and people see you, that’s building character. And the better character you have, it sheds off to the underclassmen and it makes the program better.”

Last spring, Johnson set the school’s junior class record in the mile (4:25), while Beacher set the junior two-mile mark (9:38). Gupta’s strengths lies somewhere in the middle.

Interestingly, Gupta didn’t run cross country until he was a sophomore. In spring track he started off sprinting. Smartly, a coach convinced Gupta to run distances, and he enjoyed going long. Last fall, he placed 11th in the GMC race, scoring valuable team points as Metuchen’s third-highest finisher. The top five runners score points. Two other returnees scored for the Bulldogs—Beacher in third place and Johnson in 17th overall.

Gupta said he feels more confident this season after learning the sport’s nuances the past two years. As Gupta discovered, it’s not all just about racing.

“Running and training are two different things,” Holleran said. “We try to get them to understand that. Racing is really the last part of the whole thing. We never talk about racing until it comes up. A good portion of the year is just about learning what training is. Learning what types of workouts we do. Learning that sometimes you need a rest day as well. So all those factors have to be implemented before we ever think about the end. For us, it’s pretty much been the process all along.”

In other words, it’s always XC weather for Metuchen.