When Riley Newman and Julia Ramsey joined the Winchester girls’ cross-country team as freshmen in 2023, competing among the state’s best teams seemed far-fetched.
At that point, the Red & Black had not qualified for the All-State meet in 17 years. The 2023 team had just one runner with a sub-20-minute 5K time.
“We obviously all wanted to get better and push ourselves,” said Newman. “But I just never thought we’d be in competition at the top.”
Now seniors, the message Newman and Ramsey are passing down to the team’s younger runners is dramatically different.
The Winchester girls are coming off the best season in program history, capturing their first Division 1B title and finishing fifth in Division 1. Seven runners recorded 5k times under 20 minutes, and four — including then-freshmen Millie McDonald and Chloe Chan — placed in the top 50 at the All-State meet.
With its top four finishers from All-States returning, along with the addition of two seniors who missed most of last season due to injury, Winchester is ranked No. 5 in the Globe’s Top 20.
“Winning was always the goal we were striving for, but we never realized how possible it actually was,” said Ramsey, the team’s top runner last season. “So now the expectations have gotten a little bigger. But it’s definitely helped to push us all as runners, and I think we’re ready to handle it.”
For Kirsten Healey, who joined the program as a volunteer assistant in 2015 and became head coach in 2019, raising the program’s profile began with spreading awareness about the sport in the community.
Those efforts included launching a cross-country program and maintaining a robust spring track program at the middle school level, and encouraging freshmen to take up cross-country, even if their primary focus was a different sport.
“I think that the profile of running in Winchester has increased, and that’s something that we are building out,” said Healey.
That philosophy is evident in Winchester’s current core. Newman and Ramsey joined as freshmen with minimal distance running experience and quickly worked their way into the team’s top seven. A year later, then-freshman Caroline Lanz and then-sophomore Chloe Walker similarly impacted the lineup.
With those four underclassmen leading the way in 2024, the Red & Black returned to All-States for the first time in 18 years and placed 15th in Division 1.
“Since so many of us were still young then, we knew that meant a lot for us to get to [All-States],” said Walker. “It definitely motivated us and we just grew closer.”
The Red & Black were further elevated last season by the arrival of McDonald and Chan, each of whom placed in the top 10 at the Division 1B meet and finished 28th (19:22.8) and 35th (19:34.41), respectively, at All-States.
Neither McDonald nor Chan had run cross-country previously, but both were introduced to the sport by participating in Winchester’s middle school track program under Healey.
“We kind of thought that once we qualified for [All-States], that was as good as it could get,” said Ramsey. “When we had Millie and Chloe come in as those freshmen that were insanely fast, we were like, ‘Wow, we really can do this. There’s so much more we can accomplish.’ ”
Last season’s team success was especially impressive given Walker and Newman — Winchester’s top two finishers in the Division 1B race in 2024 — both missed the bulk of the season with injuries.
Senior Eloise Woelk, also injured last year, and senior Abigail Bastien, who debuted in cross-country last season, also are expected to contribute following major offseason improvements.
With a mix of veteran returners and runners primed for major improvements, Winchester is striving to surpass last season’s success. But it’s the lasting team culture that the seniors will be proudest of.
“I just hope all of the younger runners see what the program is and that we can continue this,” said Newman. “If that’s our legacy, to be able to bring this program up to that level, that’s huge.”
Hitting the trails
▪ The Brookline boys are ready to defend the throne again, chasing their fifth-straight Division 1 title. This year, however, the competition could be much closer.
Brookline graduated a large senior class, and Cambridge, Lexington, Concord-Carlisle, and rival Natick pose threats. A top seven featuring new faces can create uncertainty in preseason analysis.
But 30-year coach Mike Glennon is known to develop talent.
“It’s the largest freshman group that we’ve had,” Glennon said. “It looks like we’ve got a couple of really good freshmen, so we’ll see how they come along.”
Juniors Nam Danh, Elias Thomasson, and Matthew Ritter return as a strong core. The top seniors are Liam Hartmann and Ibrahim Abdel-Dayem.
Hartmann missed time during the running year due to a stress fracture, but is hopeful to regain a fitness level that let him record a personal-best time of 15 minutes, 4 seconds last October at the annual Twilight Invitational.
“He was very patient, very determined, and made his way back to run very well at the end of outdoor last year,” said Glennon. “He’s put in some good work over the summer, so I think he’s going to be ready to go this year and do pretty well.”
Brookline started the year with a dual meet against Needham on Sept. 9, and the Warriors took the top 12 spots. Next week, they face Natick, whom they lost to in the first meet last year before winning out.
“I think they’ll rise to the challenge of trying to live up to the reputation of the program,” Glennon said of his team. “Whether that results in us winning a fifth title in a row or not, I don’t know. But they’ll certainly give it their all.”
Correspondent Aiden Barker contributed.
Matty Wasserman can be reached at matty.wasserman@globe.com. Follow him @Matty_Wasserman.