Billerica junior cross country standout Kylie Donahue has been selected as the Valley Sports Daily Female Player of the Week, presented by MTM Insurance, for the week of Sept. 27-Oct. 3.
Donahue turned in a school-record-setting performance at the Bay State Invitational last week, with a 5K time of 17:50.9 — placing second out of 92 athletes. Billerica placed first as a team.
Donahue is a three-season runner and led her cross country teams to undefeated (10-0) regular seasons, MVC meet championships, and state championships in each of the past two years.
“Kylie has been one of the hardest workers we’ve ever had in the program, and what happened at the Bay State Invitational was the result of a lot of work most people never see,” said Billerica head coach Cullen Hagan. “What impresses me most is that she wasn’t only focused on her own race — she went out aggressively and pulled her teammates along with her, and the whole team benefited. While we don’t focus much on time in cross country, breaking a school record is always a huge accomplishment, and I think she’s only getting started. We’re excited to see what Kylie can do against more competitive fields the rest of the season.”
Said Donahue, “I really wanted to work on getting a strong start and see what I could do in our first 5K of the season. I’m happy with the effort I gave, and I’m really glad I was able to pull a lot of my teammates out with me so we could do well as a team. Getting the school record was just a bonus. I learned a lot that I’ll take into the next race, and I’m excited to get into more competitive races and see what I can do with more runners in the field.”
The Player of the Week, presented by MTM Insurance, is selected by the Valley Sports Daily staff. One male and one female student-athlete will be selected as Players of the Week throughout the year. Nominations can be submitted throughout the week up until Saturday night at 8 p.m. There may be a poll posted on Sunday with the nominations. The results of the poll influence the selections but do not strictly dictate the decisions.
