By Christopher Tremblay

Staff Sports Writer

Not that long ago Teagan Richards found herself constantly running. She found running a passion of hers and would run everywhere, eventually her parents thought she should take part in an actual race. So at seven years old Richards took part in her first 5K road race and crossed the finish line with a time around 30 minutes.

Last year, she entered the Hopedale Jr.-Sr. High School and was able to try out for the varsity cross country team under Coach Tim Maguire. Although it was her first year of competitive running on a regular basis, the youngster held her own.

“I had always wanted to run when I got to the high school and when captains practice came along I went,” she said. “I was so excited but nervous a little at first because I was so small, but had no issues running with the older girls.”

Richards knew that running with the older girls on the team she would have to push herself to be able get her original 30-minute time down. Her first high school varsity cross country race would be at the Dual Valley Conference (DVC) Jamboree to open the season last fall. Not knowing what to expect, she decided that she would stick close to her teammates and in doing so was able to decrease her overall best time.

“After decreasing my personal record (PR) by 10 seconds I knew that I’d be able to continue to lower my times,” Richards said. “All I needed to do was keep working hard and staying close to my teammates and my times should get faster.”

Her first win would come midway through her seventh-grade season and not only was it a great feeling to cross the line first, but she also once again set another PR. It wasn’t that much longer when she became Hopedale’s number one runner and, although only a seventh grader, she felt no real pressure being that top dog - she just went out and ran her best.

When her first campaign running for the Blue Raiders came to a conclusion as the team’s number one runner, the youngster knew that she’d have to work on improving during the off-season, so she got involved in as many road races as she could while training heavily to get her times down.

“After taking over as our number one runner last year, she put in a lot of training during the summer and has continued this year right where she left off,” Coach Maguire said. “You can see that she is certainly faster than she was last year and much more familiar with myself as well as the team this year. She is a quiet kid but feels like she is one of the girls on the team now, just a year older and maturer.”

The Blue Raider coach went on to say that Richards has displayed a great work ethic and is a very consistent runner who knows how to compete at the varsity level as a young athlete.

Coming into her season this fall, Richards knew that Hopedale had qualified for the States last year and would love to get back there once a gain this year. Hopedale finished ninth as a team last fall. In addition to helping the team get back to the post-season, Richards would also like to decrease her personal best time of 20:16, preferably under 20 minutes for the 5K.

While 16 seconds doesn’t seem like a lot, it is something that could take some work to get down. 

“To cut those 16 seconds off my time, I know that I am going to have to work hard and hopefully have myself a really good day on the course and push myself, and the lower times will come,” the eighth grader said. 

Thus far, the Hopedale runners are running at a .500-win pace with Richards herself capturing two wins in the meets. The young runner still has four plus years to work on her craft while giving the Blue Raiders a quality lead runner.

“I have two wins this year so far and would like to win some more, but I know that I am still young and it may take time,” Richards said. “I’ll take things slow and hopefully steadily improve not only this season but throughout my high school career.”

Another goal of the young Hopedale runner would be to place high in the States and become a top runner. In addition to running cross country for the Blue Raiders Richards also plays basketball and softball, but its cross-country that she enjoys the most.