As with most road races, some fierce battles can be waged along the blacktop and they are not always for the coveted top place. This week saw two such battles.

In the first one, Bob Johnson of Leominster and Marc Pilon of Fitchburg duked it out to the finish with Bob coming in at 19:36 and Marc right behind him in 19:37.

In Battle Royale #2 Bill Sicard of Fitchburg and Mike Auger of Westminster went toe to toe. This one was down to the wire with Bill narrowly taking 6th place by 3/10th of a second.

Other divisional winners this week were John Loiselle of Leominster getting 1st senior awards; Darlene Murray of Sterling with 1st female master; Stan Vancellette of Amherst, NH taking 1st veteran honors; and Pat Wojtas of Chelmsford grabbing the senior female division.

Some other highlights:

• Bill Haskell of Sterling doing his fastest 5K, at least for this year, in a time of 23:17.
• Pat Wojtas has yet to be beaten this Orchard Hills season in the female senior division and continues to dramatically lower her times.
• And yet another sub-20 showing for Mike Sikorski of Sterling with his grandson Josh Maloche of Michigan waiting for him at the finish line.

PLACE  TIME  NAME                  DIV    CITY         CLUB
    1  18:51 Pat McCormick         M40-49 Rutland      CMS
    2  19:20 Mike Seretto          M40-49 Leominster   CMS
    3  19:36 Bob Johnson           M40-49 Leominster   CMS/NMC
    4  19:37 Marc Pilon            M20-39 Fitchburg    CMS/NMC
    5  19:52 Mike Sikorski         M40-49 Sterling     CMS
    6  20:09 Bill Sicard           M40-49 Fitchburg    CMS
    7  20:09 Mike Auger            M40-49 Westminster  CMS
    8  20:18 John Loiselle    -1s- M50-59 Leominster   CMS
    9  20:46 Peter Erickson        M50-59 Gardner      CMS
   10  21:14 Joe DiMucci           M40-49 Templeton    CMS
   11  21:38 Glenn Richards        M50-59 W. Boylston  CMS
   12  21:52 Karma Tousignant -1f- F20-39 Fitchburg    CMS/NMC
   13  22:24 Darlene Murray  -1fm- F40-49 Sterling     CMS
   14  22:38 Jan Beckwith          F40-49 Bolton       CMS
   15  22:54 Tobey Sparrow         F20-39 Acton        CMS
   16  23:17 Bill Haskell          M50-59 Sterling     CMS
   17  24:30 Aldo Bianco           M50-59 Leominster   CMS
   18  25:10 Stan Vancelette  -1v- M60-69 Amherst      CMS
   19  25:35 Rich Lemerise         M40-49 Worcester    CMS
   20  25:59 David Tall            M40-49 Leominster   CMS/NMC
   21  27:26 Evelyn Dolan          F40-49 Worcester    CMS
   22  29:02 Paul Obara            M50-59 Leominster   CMS
   23  31:14 Pat Wojtas      -1fs- F50-59 Chelmsford   CMS
   24  36:04 Phil Bissell          M50-59 Holden       CMS