SACO — Thornton Academy coach Mark DeFrancesco admits he wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to get out of Ryan Cadorette coming into this fall’s cross country season.
On one hand, Cadorette finished third in last spring’s 2-mile race at the Class A outdoor track state championship, showing his chops for distance running at the state’s highest level. On the other hand, Cadorette had never raced cross country before and was switching over to the sport as a senior after three years playing soccer, and freely acknowledged that even he himself had “no idea what to expect.”
It didn’t take long for both the coach and the runner to find out.
In his first-ever cross country race, Cadorette beat the top runners from 13 other SMAA schools in a head-to-head race, finishing the 1.65-mile Thornton Academy course in eight minutes, 29 seconds to win the traditional, season-opening SMAA relays meet.
It was the start of a momentous fall for Cadorette, who went undefeated in the regular season before becoming just the third Thornton Academy boy ever to win the Western Class A regional crown.
Cadorette went on to finish ninth at the state meet and finished 94th overall at the New England championships on Nov. 9.
For those accomplishments, Cadorette is the Journal Tribune’s boys cross country runner of the year.
While it was just a preseason race on a 1.65-mile course, as opposed to the standard 3.1 miles, DeFrancesco said the SMAA relays race set Cadorette up for the rest of the season.
“It was a little bit of hold your breath and see where he really matches up with the cross kids. If it had just so happened to not be such a good day, the season could have really been much different,” DeFrancesco said. “That is the dilemma that you face in that first meet. The kids all go head-to-head right away, so it’s not for the faint of heart at all.
“He did win the race, he did beat the other top guys in that race, and ultimately, it set an expectation for himself that he could beat them all.”
It was an expectation that Cadorette himself voiced on the track just minutes after the race.
“Coming in first, it shows me I have the potential,” he said at the time. “I feel like I can definitely do it now, and that’s how it’s been with track over the years ”“ the second I get success, I want more.”
Cadorette wanted more and he got it, winning his five SMAA regular-season meets by an average of 37 seconds, including a season-best 15:50 on Oct. 11 at the Narragansett School course in Gorham.
DeFrancesco said Cadorette’s game plan going into every race was simple.
“It was always to be in control, and for most of the season, that meant taking the lead,” he said. “It all does come back to that SMAA relay meet, where he had the mental wherewithal to believe he shouldn’t be going out and letting kids drop a lead on him of any size. Common sense-wise, there’s no reason for him to be laying back.”
That plan again worked to perfection at the regional meet on Oct. 26 at Cumberland’s rugged Twin Brook course, where Cadorette set the pace early and ran away from the chase pack in the last mile to win in 17:00.60, more than three seconds ahead of second-place finisher Colin Tardiff of Scarborough.
It was a textbook, veteran performance from a rookie runner.
“It sounds somewhat anti-climatic because of the achievement, but Ryan didn’t lose perspective or get overwhelmed prior to that regional meet, and it paid off,” DeFrancesco said.
“He just did what he’d done in all of the other meets, which was to go out and set the tone. We didn’t overanalyze the hills or the different course and all of that. A lot of it was just about him knowing his body and his intelligence and knowing what pace to run.”
A week later, Cadorette came up just short in his quest for the state title at Twin Brook, as he wasn’t able to keep up with the quick start of eventual winner Josh Horne from Mt. Blue and finished ninth in a time of 17:16.
But a week later, he was back to his old self at the New England meet in Manchester, N.H., where he again beat every boy from Western Class A to finish 94th in a time of 16:42.50.
Now, it will be onto the indoor track season, where Cadorette finished fourth in the 2-mile run last season at the Class A state meet.
With a full season of cross country under his belt, Cadorette should have a much easier transition onto the track, DeFrancesco said. But along with a higher profile in the running world, there will also come higher expectations.
“I think it’s a little bit of a tale of two cities for him. In one respect, the cross country season should, and I think will, provide a lot of confidence for him,” DeFrancesco said. “But I think he learned a lot about the weight of expectations in the state meet. That’s going to be something he’s going to have to manage because there are other good runners out there.
“He has a healthy respect for the sport, and he knows it’s a new season and all kinds of things can happen.”
— Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or cdunbar@journaltribune.com.
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