The quickest way to understand what bonds the boys cross-country runners so strongly to one another, to their team cause, is to witness them at a large meet. Take, for example, the Shaler Invitational, the Oct. 31 event Williston hosted featuring school from across Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. There’s a line of buses and vans. There are tents and jackets and snacks and water jugs strewn across every available patch of grass. There are coaches and parents and dogs and signs. There’s a food truck. There’s music.

And there, tucked away from the scrum of activity, is the group of Williston boys, stretching, talking quietly, singularly focused. It’s remarkable; for a sport based almost entirely on individual performance, so contingent on what one runner does, by himself, the boys cross-country team is as tight a team as any at the school.

It’s clear in the way they gather in a close circle to stretch with senior co-captains Kamaal Sergeev and Lachlan Maddock; in the way they huddle up at the starting line; how they know each other’s personal records and goals; at which race they earned which place. It’s in how they cheer for each other at every turn. It’s clear, too, even in the way they talk about each other’s skill and determination.

“Noah’s a dog,” says Maddock about junior Noah Lehane, whose goal at Saturday’s meet was to make the team’s honor roll, a list of the top 15 Williston runners on their home course. He needed to come in at 18:45. High praise in slang, being called “a dog.”

Lehane’s strategy, he said, was to run the first mile between 5:45-5:50; the second he would run slower, at 6:10; in the last mile, “I’m going to give it everything I’ve got,” he said. “That’s the goal.”

Lehane said the conditions were perfect for him to put his plan into action.

“I feel great,” he said. “I slept well. Everything’s lined up.”

Sergeev was feeling great, as well, and had his sights set on a “low 17.” (His personal record this year was at the team’s Oct. 17 meet at Avon Old Farms, at which he ran the course in 17:18; the following week, at Taft on Oct. 24 he ran 17:19.)

The team’s coaches, Michael Doubleday and Mike Mailloux, were proud of their team’s focus, and confident the runners had done all the preparation they needed for the race, only the team’s second home meet of the season.

“They know the course, they’ve put in reps in the woods, they’ve put in reps out of the woods to the finish line,” said Mailloux. “We’ve done a lot of practice running race pace on [all] sections of the course.”

At the Shaler, Sergeev ran 17:36, earning him sixth place among all competitors. Lehane did not make the honor roll, but in true unified team fashion, Seergev was quick to explain Lehane was sick the whole previous week, which contributed to his teammate’s less than ideal race time.

Though not the fastest on the team, senior Ryan Yoo, both in effort and attitude, exemplified the bond and brotherhood that runs through and unites the XC team.

As he relayed his personal best, which he achieved at Taft with a 23:55, Yoo, from Fort Lee, N.J., had a crew of underclassmen around him all cheering him on. He was hoping for a new PR of 24:30; his reasoning was that it had been a busy week—he’d submitted his first college applications—but, as he said, “hopefully I’ll expend all the energy I’ve stored up.”

Yoo, just an hour or so later, would be one in a long line of Williston runners both cheered on and cheering others on.