As a lifelong runner, and the mother of two adolescent athletes, I zealously follow the Globe’s coverage of high school cross-country and track. I was happy to see that the Massachusetts All-State Cross-Country meet garnered a full third of a page of coverage in the Sunday Globe on Nov. 19. Taking nothing away from the prodigious talents of Tristan Shelgren and Grace Connolly, I feel the Globe missed the true story of the meet. Cross-country at its heart is a team sport, and the triumph of the Concord-Carlisle girls team in the Division 1 race is a wonderful example of that.

The first noteworthy item is that the Concord-Carlisle girls team has three freshman runners among its seven varsity runners. Second, they had no runner placing in the top 10 finishers. Instead, the team triumphed as a result of all its scoring runners placing in the top quarter of the competitors. Hats off to a performance that exemplifies the true team element of cross-country competition, and that deserves more than a sentence of mention in the Globe.

Jennifer Wynn

Acton