Boys Update

AJ grabbed 16th, the top Section V finish, with a very nice run.

Complete results are available at http://www.leonetiming.com

Girls Update

Amanda had an excellent race, running about 19:35 and quite possibly making the top 40!

In the girls A race, Shaylyn was 3rd and Canandaigua seemed to have an excellent race, but if they posted results, I haven't found them.

Girls B featured East Aurora and they were very solid up front with Marta and Megan going 3-4. I didn't see the finish, but it looked like Christine Driscoll was on her way to the win.

Twas the Night Before States

Mostly this is to just check the mobile capability of uploading to the Blog. If this works, watch for near real-time updates from the course tomorrow, assuming there is decent cell coverage there.

The course tour went well today. Yes, there is a hill, but not in the first mile and it is over before the halfway point, and is followed pretty closely by a nice downhill to recover and prepare for the last mile.

Go Warriors!

Some state meet information, including predicted team scores, is available at Tully Runners.

1 + 1 = 2

Congratulations to AJ and Amanda for qualifying for the State Championships at Lakeside Park in Pawling, NY on Saturday. The schedule is as follows:
8:45 Girls AA (Amanda's race)
9:15 Girls A
9:45 Girls B
10:15 Girls C
10:45 Girls D
11:15 Boys AA (AJ's race)
11:45 Boys A
12:15 Boys B
12:45 Boys C
1:15 Boys D

And congratulations to the Varsity teams that concluded their seasons with fine performances on Saturday. The Sectional results are available at Yen Timing. The most interesting direct links are below. The "Merged" results shows the results as if all the races had been run at the same time.

AA Girls
AA Boys
Merged Girls
Merged Boys

Sectional Preview

OK, so I'll start listing some of the computer predictions for Sectionals for AA and A, and add some random predictions for the smaller schools. Usual caveats apply.

Class AA - Girls
Fairport 50
Penfield 72
Rush Henrietta 83
Hilton 111
Schroeder 127
Thomas 129
Brockport 176
Churchville Chili 194
Gates Chili 224
Edison inc

Individual results are by subscription only! Actually, I am limiting them to the team group.

Class A - Girls

This one is a stunner. With HF-L jogging thru Counties, I did not think the computer had enough information about how good they are, but the computer is picking HF-L in an incredibly close three-way race!

Honeoye Falls Lima 48
Mendon 53
Canandaigua 59
Sutherland 143
Mercy 144
Victor 154
Irondequoit 197
Athena 211
Brighton 215
Spencerport 276
East Irondequoit 321
Olympia 326
Arcadia 388

Top 22 individuals (gets thru 5 of each of the top 3 teams):
1 Tuite, Shaylyn Mendon
2 McCormick, Meghan Canandaigua
3 Cole, Hannah Honeoye Falls Lima
4 Atkins, Morgan Mendon
5 Steinke, Ruth Honeoye Falls Lima
6 Engel, Katie Honeoye Falls Lima
7 Hanna, Bridget Mercy
8 McCormick, Kate Canandaigua
9 Lawler, Maggie Victor
10 Hallock, Allison Mendon
11 D'Amore, Kendall Canandaigua
12 Mizes, Alicia Sutherland
13 Beiter, Kaylin Honeoye Falls Lima
14 Maffett, Megan Spencerport
15 Dehm, Olivia Victor
16 Ryan, Kylie Mendon
17 Swertfeger, Sarah Olympia
18 Miller, Hayley Canandaigua
19 Tuttle, Georgia Irondequoit
20 Mack, Kellie Canandaigua
21 Williams, Jenna Honeoye Falls Lima
22 Pieper, Lilly Mendon

Class B - Girls

The team race should be very close between Geneva and Wayne. At McQuaid, Geneva had 3 top runners, but #4 was about 5 minutes behind Christine Driscoll, and #5 was another 1.5 minutes back. Wayne's top 5 spread was a relatively tight 2:40. Last weekend at the Wayne-Finger Lakes Champs, Wayne prevailed, 102-122, with a spread of 2:05 vs 7:08. With 19 schools in Class B, anything can happen in the middle of the pack to alter the results of this battle.

Top 10 individuals (according to Tully Speed Rating):
1 Christine Driscoll Geneva
2 Cassie Goodman Midlakes
3 Alison Lockwood Geneva
4 Erika Steensma Wayne
5 Michelle Collins Geneva
6 Javonna Miller Newark
7 Sarah Warner Livonia
8 Abby Munger Batavia
9 Audrey Redman Livonia
10 Rebecca Manwaring Waterloo

Class C - Girls

The team race could be close. Wayland Cohocton has the edge with 4 quality runners, but Williamson's spread was only 1:49 in winning the W-FL title.

Top individuals (by Tully Speed Rating)
1 Samantha Johnson Letchworth
2 Cassidy Bishop Williamson
3 Sierra DeVine Mynderse
4 Hannah Groshner Wayland Cohocton
5 Breonica Smith Wayland Cohocton
6 Meghan Curtin Wayland Cohocton
7 Amanda Booth Wayland Cohocton
8 Stephanie Milici Greece Odyssey
9 Megan Bouten Campbell-Savona
10 Amanda Bradstreet East Rochester

Class D - Girls

A good team race is shaping up here. The state rankings currently say:
Oakfield Alabama (#2) followed by Geneseo (#3), Pavilion (#5) and Red Jacket (#9)

Red Jacket is tough thru three runners, but last week at the W-FL meet, their next two were over 25 minutes. Pavilion is very solid thru four runners, but their fifth may add a ton of points, depending how many of the Class D schools have complete teams. Oakfield edged Geneseo, 79-85, last week at the Livingston County meet. A larger number of complete teams should help Oakfield, but this should be close.

Top, oh I don't know, let's say 13, individuals (Tully Speed Ratings):
1 Sarah Coon Red Jacket
2 Liz Valento Pavilion
3 Casey Emerson Geneseo
4 Jenny Crossen Oakfield-Alabama
5 Jen Schramm Harley-Allendale
6 Shealyn Doody Red Jacket
7 Lindsay Ryan Geneseo
8 Paige Radney Pavilion
9 Anna Warner Notre Dame-Bat
10 Anna Phillips Avon
11 Heather Yuhnke Pavilion
12 Ashley Covel Oakfield-Alabama
13 Brenna Lyons Addison

Class AA - Boys

R-H is capable of making this score much more lopsided. The computer doesn't have all of their top performances factored in, since they were not competing against other Section V teams for a few of those. Tully's Speed Ratings score R-H with 25 points! And, no surprise, there is a legitimate four-way battle for the runner-up spot.

Rush Henrietta 43
Hilton 95
Schroeder 98
Thomas 103
Brockport 111
Fairport 141
Gates Chili 159
Penfield 170
Churchville Chili 268
Edison inc

Tully Ratings score Hilton 89, Thomas 100, Schroeder 101, Brockport 116.

Class A - Boys

Eight state-ranked teams will make this a heck of a race. The computer has McQuaid winning, but I don't think that McQuaid's 3-4-5 are all back to full speed yet, but it's tough to say since they didn't have a County meet event last week to get a sneak peek. HF-L has not shown their hand, but I don't see them moving ahead of Brighton and probably not Mendon. Mendon was much closer to Sutherland last week, but I think that was due to Sutherland being just a bit off, whether intentional or not.

Sutherland 59 (ranked #3 in State)
McQuaid 63 (#6)
Brighton 102 (#9)
Mendon 103 (#7)
Victor 140 (#18)
Honeoye Falls Lima 146 (#15)
Irondequoit 162 (#14)
Arcadia 184
Athena 213 (#17)
Canandaigua 289
Olympia 306
Spencerport 346
East Irondequoit 397
East inc
Frankin inc
Wilson inc
Monroe inc

Top individuals:
1 Hurlbut, Robert McQuaid
2 Smolensky, Scotty Brighton
3 Gouldthorpe, Wyatt McQuaid
4 Lipani, Lou Arcadia
5 Zeccola, Andrew Mendon
6 Erb, M.J. Victor (could be higher)
7 Anvelt, Mike Sutherland
8 Sullivan, Michael McQuaid
9 Reid, Kyle Victor
10 Fischer, Sean Sutherland
11 Dworkin, Jordan Sutherland
12 Burton, Will Mendon
13 Ngabo, Alex Athena (could be higher)

Class B - Boys

Wayne seems to be the clear favorite here, possibly with a dual meet sort of score. Tully ranks the following runners:
1 Colin Kerr Wayne
2 Yanko Panipinto Wayne
3 Tim McGowan Dansville
4 Sean Morgan Wayne
5 Travis Gregorio Midlakes
6 Collin Mulcahy Batavia
7 Jeremy Hassett Newark
8 Adam Gardner Wayne
9 Chris Hennessy Wayne
10 Mike Pitcher Hornell
11 Jon Laird Batavia
12 Sam Harbol Pal-Mac
13 Ben McCormack Newark
14 Mike Weber Aquinas

Class C - Boys

Wayland Cohocton is favored over Odyssey here. Last week WC was at the Livingston County meet, while Odyssey was at the Monroe County meet (and a slightly tougher course).

WC: 16:23, 17:18, 17:56, 18:29, 18:34
Ody: 18:07, 18:08, 18:18, 18:34, 18:48

Individuals (from Tully):
1 Cohen Miles-Rath Wayland-Cohocton
2 Paul Schwan LeRoy
3 Zac Ekdahl Marcus Whitman
4 Carson Tyler Campbell-Savona
5 David Smith Holley
6 Jonathan Kelly Wayland-Cohocton
7 Jon Pearl Campbell-Savona
8 Andrew Fischer Notre Dame-Bat
9 Frank Carroll Greece Odyssey
10 Nick Budinski Greece Odyssey
11 Brandon Selbig Wayland-Cohocton
12 Matt Herbert Wayland-Cohocton
13 Joel Rosko Campbell-Savona
14 Adam Mahaney Pembroke
15 Steven Custozzo Greece Odyssey

Class D - Boys

Umm, maybe Geneseo? They've had an awesome year and are ranked #1 in the state. They are well ahead of local competitors H-AC (11th in the state) and Pavilion (16th).

Individuals (from Tully):

1 Ryan Moynihan Geneseo
2 Calvin Patten Alexander
3 Gabe Rodriguez Geneseo
4 Jason Ehmann Geneseo
5 Devon Rodriguez Geneseo
6 Tylor Richardson Pavilion
7 Evan Magnussen Geneseo
8 Jon Chapin Canisteo-Greenwood
9 Ethan Richardson Pavilion
10 Mitch Cicero Perry
11 Tadhg Karski DeSales
12 Matthew Woodard Red Jacket
13 Mason Sutorius Harley Allendale
14 Brandon Rebert Oakfield-Alabama
15 Thomas Abbey Addison

Sectionals

The Section V Cross Country Championships will be held this coming Saturday, November 6th at the Genesee Community College campus, just outside of Batavia. This meet determines the teams and athletes that will represent Section V at the NY State Championships the following weekend.

There are ten races in all. A boys race and a girls race in each of 5 classes: AA, A, B, C, and D. Schools are grouped into the classes, based on their enrollment in grades 10-12, as follows:
AA: 1025 and up
A: 645-1024
B: 425-644
C: 256-424
D: up to 255

We compete in the largest schools' race, Class AA. The other schools in AA include: Fairport, Rush-Henrietta, Gates-Chili, Penfield, Edison Tech, Webster Thomas, Hilton, Churchville-Chili and Brockport. For the full list of schools in each class, in every section, you can check out the listing on TullyRunners.

The schedule for Saturday is as follows:
10:30 Girls Class C
11:00 Girls Class DD/D
11:30 Boys Class C
12:00 Boys Class DD/D
1:00 Girls Class B
1:30 Girls Class AA
2:00 Girls Class A
2:30 Boys Class B
3:00 Boys Class AA
3:30 Boys Class A

Monroe County XC Champs Results

Full results from Saturday's meet are available at Yen Timing. Check the recent results box on the right hand side. Here are the current direct links to:
Boys JV
Girls JV
Boys Varsity
Girls Varsity
Boys B
Girls B

Monroe County Champs Preview - Individuals

I have posted the individual predictions on our Team Google Groups site (the Fans site upload is not working). The Varsity Girls B has not been uploaded yet. I will add some of the predictions here tonight, but I will not provide full disclosure of all races on the Blog.

Monroe County Champs Preview - Boys Teams

Here are the predictions for the Boys team results at the Monroe County Championships on Saturday. The same caveats apply as for the Girls preview. These totals are based on actual performances in meets against other Monroe County teams (league meets and various invitationals). The predictions can be off substantially in the cases where runners "jog through" races, or where a runners are injured and may not be coming back at full speed. Finally, the rumor is that R-H may not run their top guys (makes sense, with several weekends still ahead for them), and other teams have "thrown" Counties in the past, and may do so again. That being said, here is how the team competition could shape up (again, the notes attempt to explain the, sometimes dramatic, differences from the pre-season outlook that was posted here):


Rank Team Pre-County Notes
1 Rush Henrietta 80 On Track
2 Sutherland 104 Tighter pack
3 Brighton 138 Assumes Ronchetti returns
4 Mendon 189 Improving youngsters
5 Hilton 189 Injuries?
6 Schroeder 205 Improved seniors
7 Thomas 210 Youngsters picking up some of Top 3's drop
8 Brockport 231 Big 2 became Big 3 and may have 5th man
9 Honeoye Falls Lima 232 And this assumes Hoose returns
10 Victor 234 Sleeper - w/ Top 2 often running easy
11 Irondequoit 278 No seniors - wait 'til next year
12 Fairport 283 Nice rally thanks to large squad
13 Gates Chili 345 Well, Jordan is running quite well
14 Arcadia 346 Lipani got some help
15 Athena 376 Top 3 are new this year and Ngabo is tough
16 Penfield 380 Expected more support behind Gumina
17 Batavia 419 Never can tell with small teams
18 Canandaigua 543 Some gains
19 Odyssey 549 Saving it for end of year?
20 Olympia 586 New #2 is the improvement
21 Churchville Chili 587 A new Scott Bagley was not enough
22 Spencerport 663 Slipped more than expected
23 East Rochester 723 Small team
24 East Irondequoit 770 Small team

Monroe County Champs Preview - Girls Teams

This weekend brings us the Monroe County Championship meet, at Genesee Valley Park on Saturday. Complete meet information is available here, and the course map is here. The order of events is as follows:

11:15 Modified Boys
11:45 Modified Girls
1:00 JV Boys
1:30 JV Girls
2:00 Varsity Boys
2:30 Varsity Girls
3:00 Varsity “B” Boys
3:30 Varsity “B” Girls

The JV races will have our 9th and 10th graders that are not in the top 7, and the Varsity B races will have our 11th and 12th graders.

Back in September, I posted a pre-season prediction for the girls race at Counties. It was based entirely on 2009 results and we've seen many changes over the course of the season, so here is the current prediction, with some comments regarding the changes since pre-season. The difficulty in making the County meet predictions is that there are some teams that don't compete all-out at Counties, with Sectionals, States, Federations, and Nike Cross (Qualifiers and perhaps Nationals) all still to come.

That being said, here is how it may shape up:

Rank Team Pre-County Notes
1 Honeoye Falls Lima 75 Always seem to reload
2 Mendon 87 Pack has moved up
3 Canandaigua 101 Not performing to last year's level
4 Fairport 123 Very solid 1-4, but 5 is a ?
5 Penfield 152 Great 1-2 punch
6 Rush Henrietta 191 Added 8th grader, saved points
7 Hilton 252 Disappointing, but improving
8 Sutherland 253 Pack has dropped a bit
9 Thomas 260 Track stars struggling with XC
10 Schroeder 262 3 frosh in top 6 for big improvement
11 Victor 266 A whole new team behind Lawler
12 Irondequoit 345 Not running last year's times
13 Brighton 346 About as expected
14 Athena 358 Nice improvement by top 3
15 Brockport 369 Improved up front plus added 2nd frosh
16 Churchville Chili 401 O'Neill is all alone
17 Spencerport 490 Was Saxton injured, rest faded
18 Gates Chili 498 Top 2, then big gap and no 5th
19 Odyssey 509 At least they have a complete team
20 East Irondequoit 583 As expected
21 Olympia 606 No help from pack
22 Batavia 684 Preseason was a funny error
23 East Rochester 697 At least they have a complete team
24 Arcadia 722 22:27 and up, even at McQuaid

Rankings

Well, the only rankings that really count are the results of the last meet of the season; however, it is fun to speculate how our teams stack up against Section V and the rest of the State.

A new set of rankings are out this morning, and here is what we see. From the Section V Coaches Poll for this week, our girls have solidified their hold on the #8 spot, while creeping closer to R-H and Hilton in the voting. And the boys have jumped up from "also receiving votes" to the number 6 spot - very closely bunched with Brockport, Brighton and Wayne in 4-7.

A look at the latest NY State Rankings for girls does not list Schroeder, but shows that we are not far off. Fairport remains #3 in AA and #6 overall and Penfield is still #14 in AA. Class A is loaded with Section V teams: Mendon #2 (and #5 overall), HF-L #5, Canandaigua #6, Sutherland #11, Mercy #18 and Victor #23. West Seneca West from Section 6 holds on to the #25 spot in Class AA, and it is clear that we could give them a serious run for the money.

Finally, the NY State Rankings for boys has some new teams ranked in Class AA. Brockport debuts at #22, after their fine race over at the Burnt Hills invitational at Saratoga Park. And checking in at #24 are the boys from Schroeder! Now it's time to prove they still underestimate us, by turning in solid performances at Counties and Sectionals!

Around the League

The craziness continues at work, so this has been sitting unfinished for a few days...

Last Tuesday marked the final league meet date of the 2010 season, and there was certainly some excitement to be had.

Mendon East

A week ago, Shaylyn Tuite had run a very fast time on this course, beating her own best league meet time on the course (from 8th grade) by 36 seconds in becoming the first girl to break 19 minutes in a league meet, since the leader board started in 2005. This week she brought things to a new level, running 18:03, which tops even the best Monroe County Championship time recorded (18:06.8 by Hilton's Amanda Griggs in 2005). The R-H girls looked good, comfortably defeating Sutherland, 18-37.

The R-H boys won easily over Sutherland, although judging by their spread (and no Mickey Burke), they were not going all out across the board. Sutherland's tight spread (just 31 seconds!) proved to be too much for Mendon, 23-32.

Mendon West

The Victor girls ended any suspense by finishing 1-2-3 over Brighton, so Brighton's 54-second gap was not going to save them.

MJ Erb took the day off and Victor's 4-5 runners were no match for Brighton's 3-7 pack as Brighton rolled, 21-40. Athena had made an appearance in the Class A state rankings, but even without Erb, Victor defeated them, 19-40.

Parma Park

The highlighted matchup here were the Fairport girls vs. Canandaigua, with the Division 1 title on the line. Meghan McCormick led Canandaigua with the win in a "course record" 19:03, running 13 seconds faster than Leila Mantilla's time from a month ago. But Fairport took 2-3-5-6 to secure the win, even though their 5th girl was over 2 minutes back. Fairport's 27-29 win gives them the Division crown.

The Brockport boys went 1-2-3, as expected and their 5th man, a 9th grader was only 1:26 back, so they are suddenly a much better team. Odyssey just jogged thru the race.

Seneca Park

Sadly, Leila Mantilla did not run this race for Penfield, so what could have been a very exciting match-up with HF-L, turned in to a 23-32 win for HF-L.

Things were more interesting on the Boys side. Irondequoit did not run their best, so HF-L was able to sweep with wins over Irondequoit (26-31) and Penfield (26-30). Penfield's 2-6 pack (only 1 senior) was just a little too far back and they lost to Irondequoit, 26-31.

Webster Park

Both the girls and boys races seemed to be capable of generating some excitement as Hilton, Thomas and Schroeder all seemed to be fairly closely matched.

The girls all came ready to race. A large group of girls followed Val and Amanda up the hill after the bridge during the first mile. Over the course of the race, the lead group gradually dwindled - Thomas falling off first, with Val and Amanda running the last mile in just over 6 minutes and pulling away from the Hilton girls. Annelise gradually passed the top 4 Thomas girls, to secure the win over Thomas, and momentarily caught the 4th Hilton girl, which could have kept Schroeder's hopes alive; however, Hilton ultimately placed 7 runners ahead of Schroeder's 5th and prevailed, 27-30.

While the Hilton girls came to race, the Hilton boys did not. They were content to run through this one, coming off their trip to Saratoga last weekend, and facing a couple of tough non-division opponents. That left the meet as a simple dual meet featuring Thomas and Schroeder in a battle for the Division title. Jared, Thomas's top runner looked ill early on and finished back in the pack. Coupled with excellent races by Justin, Will and Joe, that led to a 22-33 win for Schroeder.

Schroeder's First Division Title

Well, the boys got it done yesterday! The solid win over Thomas means that Schroeder has their first XC division title since the Webster schools split. I'm not sure when the unified school last won a division title, but it has been a while. Great work guys. The overall record of 20-3 meant that we finished second overall in Monroe County, behind Sutherland (22-1). The 20 wins set a new school record, since prior to the Schroeder/Thomas split, it was not possible to record 20 victories in a season.

My favorite statistic for the boys is their record against state-ranked teams, head-to-head in our League meets. It is an incredible 7-3, with one loss coming by one point to Mendon, thanks to a fence and flag placement. For an unranked team to put up that sort of record against ranked teams, it must show some impressive determination.

And how about those girls! Since the schools split, the Schroeder girls had not been able to post 10 wins in one season. The final record of 16-7 this year surpassed all expectations, and even included wins over state-ranked teams from Sutherland and Victor. The 1-2-3 finish against Thomas yesterday guaranteed the second win against our friends from across town, the other being an exciting 28-28 win in 2006. Since the results have been tracked on the internet, our average loss against Hilton has been 16-46 in the 7 previous years. Yesterday, it was 27-30 and the meet was even closer than the score indicates.

Now it is time to focus on the Championship races!

No Boston For You

Last night I felt like I was dealing with the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld fame. Since I have a job (well, two at this time of year), and we are crazy busy right now, I did not have more than perhaps a spare minute with an internet connection from 7am yesterday, until I got home after 6pm. Since I also had a meeting from 7-9pm, I didn't have time to try to enter the Boston Marathon before 7pm. After I got home from the meeting, I went to the registration page to find that the registration had closed!

It turns out that the marathon field was filled between 9am, when the registration opened and 5:03pm. Last year it took two months to fill, and that happened just a few days before I ran my qualifier in Philadelphia, so I wasn't able to enter in 2010.

Now, there was no registration available, except during the work day. Perhaps if unemployment were not so high, there would have been a chance for working stiffs to register.

This is quite disappointing. I was hoping to run Boston again while Chelsea is still in school there, perhaps as my last "real" marathon (as opposed to recreational marathon), but now it looks as though I will have to qualify again in order to do so.

Final League Meet

It should be exciting at Webster Park tomorrow. The boys and girls teams both face very close competitors in Hilton and our friends from Thomas. The scouting reports have been uploaded to our Google Groups sites.

Go Warriors!

Sunday's Post

Our JV team made the trip to Alden yesterday. Results are available here.

It looks like a few of our closest competitors made the journey to the Albany area for the Burnt Hills Invitational at Saratoga Springs Park. Complete results are available here. Several teams that are state-ranked in Class AA or Class A were in the Varsity 3 races. On the boys side, the top 10 with average time and last week's ranking:
1 Arlington 15:49.47 (AA #10)
2 Burnt Hills 15:52.76 (A #1)
3 Queensbury 16:05.69 (A #5)
4 Niskayuna 16:24.13 (AA #20)
5 Guilderland 16:27.30 (NR)
6 Brockport 16:26.24 (NR)
7 Hilton 16:29.38 (AA #22)
8 Victor 16:30.09 (A #10)
9 Bethlehem 16:36.55 (NR)
10 Monroe-Woodbury 16:39.71 (AA #24)

For the girls:
1 Burnt Hills 18:33.87 (A #2)
2 Greenwich 18:58.09 (C! #1)
3 Queensbury 18:43.07 (A #1)
4 North Shore 18:59.87 (A #5)
5 Arlington 19:00.67 (AA #5)
6 Guilderland 19:05.20 (AA #11)
7 Shaker 19:21.50 (AA #17)
8 Lincoln-Sudbury 19:28.23 (NR - Mass.)
9 Holy Names 19:23.26 (A #8)
10 Columbia 19:34.60 (NR)
11 Hilton 19:43.24
15 Victor 20:17.78
17 Brockport 20:34.67

These results indicate that Tuesday's meet with Hilton should be very interesting. And of course we still remember that the Thomas boys edged us by 0.15 seconds per man (and 11 points) at McQuaid, and their girls got us by 0.47 seconds per person (although we did beat them in the team scoring).

Bulldog Invitational

Tomorrow the JV team (minus a few juniors that have to take the PSATs) travels to Alden for the Bulldog Invitational. This means we will be participating in just two races:
12:00pm JV boys
12:30pm JV girls

The course is quite flat with a very nice woods loop and has produced some fast times in the past. If the rain is mostly over, the course should be in good condition for the meet.

Our JV boys are the defending champions at this meet, but I expect East Aurora will be there and running strong (last year they had been hit hard by the flu). Here are links to last year's results, and 2008 results, when Mendon and Sutherland also made the trip.

Around the League

Sorry, this was supposed to be posted last night.

Black Creek Park

The Hilton boys, still not at full strength defeated HF-L, still without Hoose, 24-31 in what looks like an interesting race, as HF-L was just 16 seconds away from picking up 4 points. In the girls race, Hilton’s top 4 ran together, well back from HF-L’s top 5.

Center Park

It was Arcadia’s Lou Lipani’s turn to outrun Travis Jordon of Gates-Chili for the win, leading Arcadia to an easy win. The Canandaigua girls took 8 of the top 10 spots to win easily.

Mendon East

It looks like this was an exciting place to be this week, with the Brighton, Mendon and Thomas boys squaring off. Brighton was led by Scotty Smolensky’s comfortable margin of victory over Jared, then their next 4 were within 15 seconds of each other to all finish in the top 10 as they defeated Mendon, 22-34 and Thomas, 25-32. Mendon edged Thomas, 28-28 with the sixth man displacing and breaking the tie. Cole was just one second behind Drew Zeccola, and Thomas is still relying on 3 freshman and a sophomore behind their big 3.

For the girls, Mendon seemed to take it a bit easy, after their top 3 went 1-2-3 overall to clinch all of the dual meets. Thomas took 5-8, with Molly just a bit farther back.

Parma Park

R-H (did you see their nice write-up in today’s D&C?) ran their top guys for an easy win. Brockport, with their 5th man still over 2 minutes back (but closing the gap), took advantage of MJ Erb sitting out to defeat Victor 28-29. The deciding spot was Brockport’s 4th man finishing two seconds ahead of Victor’s 3rd. There was no sign of R-H’s 8th grade girl in the results, and they lost to Victor, 27-28.

Webster Park

AJ became the first runner to break 16 minutes on this course in a meet other than the battle of the unbeaten teams that culminated the 2008 season. Sutherland’s 2-5 finished 9 seconds apart, between Geoff and Justin M to secure the win over Schroeder, 24-33. The individual surprise was the third place finish by Athena’s Alex Ngabo – making him the third fastest newcomer to Monroe County XC, behind only R-H’s Mickey Burke and Nick Watson.

The girls race featured the hometown Schroeder Warriors against state-ranked teams from Fairport (4th in Class AA), Penfield (18th in AA) and Sutherland (10th in A). It drew the largest crowd I’ve seen for a league meet, in quite some time. It was a very exciting race, with Fairport’s Ashton Hughes splitting up Penfield’s dynamic duo of Leila Mantilla and Katie Lembo, to allow Fairport to hang on for a 27-28 win. The Schroeder girls really stepped up with Val and Amanda posting the best Schroeder times on this course by nearly a minute (19:30 and 19:31) and Annelise and Sarah finished comfortably ahead of Sutherland’s 3-6 pack to secure a 25-31 upset over Sutherland.

Scouting Report and Orienteering Opportunity

The scouting reports, with computer predictions for today's meet. have been uploaded to our Google Groups. They show some interesting races for this afternoon.

Also, there is an interesting Orienteering opportunity that can [optionally] be used for practice tomorrow. The Rochester Orienteering Club is hosting a meet at Webster Park. It is likely to be a relatively small event, given the starting times, but it will include some people that are traveling from afar, moving from last weekend's meet in Hamilton, ON (via a race on Goat Island at Niagara Falls) and headed to Albany for the US Classic Championships this coming weekend.

The cost for anyone from the XC team is $3 ($5 with chili, etc. included afterwards). It will be a good substitute for Wednesday's practice, with a chance to do a Sprint race (short, with relatively easy navigation - Zach should be under 20 minutes), followed by a 60-minute Score-O event, where you attempt to visit as many controls as possible. These events can/should be done at less than full speed, but that may actually yield better results, if your navigation improves.

The Sprint starts are from 2-4pm and the Score-O is a mass start event at 4:30.

Home Cooking

After a restful 4-day weekend (for the kids, if not the coaches), our league meet schedule continues tomorrow on our "home" course at Webster Park. The competition tomorrow should be formidable as we face some of the more established programs from Sutherland, Penfield, Fairport and Athena.

As of last week, when Monroe County had an incredible 10 teams show up in the Girls State Rankings, Fairport was ranked #3 in the state for Class AA, Penfield was #14 and Sutherland was #10 in Class A. Our girls have already knocked off #19, Victor, so this should be an interesting race with Sutherland - at McQuaid, they averaged 4 seconds per runner faster.

The boys' challenge is facing Sutherland, #2 in Class A (thanks to a 24-second 1 thru 5 spread at McQuaid), while fending off Athena (#18 in Class A) and the quality teams from Penfield and Fairport.

Around the League

Some notes from Tuesday's league meets:

Harris Whalen

The Thomas boys took advantage of R-H resting their varsity, to remain undefeated in Division 1 and take sole possession of first place, with R-H losing to Penfield as well. Jared and Cole finished together, 1-2, just barely ahead of Tyler Gumina from Penfield. Thomas had 9th graders in their 4-5-6 spots, running 18:09, 18:40 and 19:06.

On the girls side, Canandaigua edged Penfield, 27-29, despite Leila Mantilla winning again, this time in an impressive 19:09, 2nd fastest in recent years at the park.

Mendon East

Athena’s boys had an easy time, taking 4 of the top 6 and 6 of the top 10 spots, with Odyssey their closest competition. There was the same result in the girls race, although all of the scores were closer.

Parma

Schroeder boys and girls swept, with further research showing that this is the first time the girls have swept in the internet results era (2003-2010).

Seneca Park

Victor defeated the Mendon boys, 27-29, with Mendon well off their performances at East Aurora and McQuaid. The Mendon girls also seemed to have a post-McQuaid letdown as HF-L turned the tables on them, in the battle of the two remaining undefeated Monroe County teams. While Mendon prevailed 91-97 at McQuaid, HF-L took the dual meet, 24-31. Of course Shalyn Tuite still managed to knock 33 seconds off her course record, winning in 18:14.

Northampton Park

Brockport boys have closed their 1-5 spread to 1:56, but it was still not quite enough to surprise Sutherland, as they lost by just 28-29. Sutherland’s spread was just 38 seconds, as they remained the only undefeated team in Monroe County league competition. Hilton fell back off after their solid McQuaid performance and were edged by Brockport, 26-30. The Hilton girls were not at full strength at McQuaid, but seemed to be here, as the edged Sutherland, 25-30.

8-0!

Well, the boys and girls each completed the sweep yesterday, earning wins over Brighton, Gates-Chili, Greece Olympia and Batavia. This was the first time in the internet era (internet results go back to 2003, so that is 8 seasons of XC) that the boys have defeated Brighton. Brighton had been the only remaining team that Schroeder had not beaten during that time.

The girls had a similar accomplishment, beating Brighton for the first time in the internet era. That leaves 9 teams remaining for the girls to tackle (it was 11 before the season, but Victor was also removed from the list last week): Rush-Henrietta, Hilton, Penfield, Sutherland, Athena, Fairport, Mendon, plus Canandaigua and HF-L, both relatively new to the league (added in 2009).

The girls record stands at 11-4. This is the first time the girls have hit double digits in wins, during the internet era. With just one more win in the last two weeks, they will ensure a winning record, which has not happened since before 2003. You go girls!

Running Behind

That's me that is running behind, certainly not the team. I'm sure everyone knows that the results from McQuaid are available at the McQuaid website. In addition to the results from each race, the page includes "merged results" for boys and girls. There are a couple of problems with the merged results: the conditions changed throughout the day (and the course actually became slightly slower late in the day, due to the areas of mud that became soupier) and the merged results add teams that are irrelevant to our comparisons with other Monroe County teams. That being said, they are fun to look at, and see how strong our teams have become.

Tomorrow's meet is over at Parma Park. Here is a link to directions from Schroeder. It is a bit of a hike, but the meet should be work the drive for fans as Brighton is ranked 9th in the state for Class A, and their girls seem every bit as good as Victor, that gave us a very nice race last week.

McQuaid Invitiational

Once again we are competing in the McQuaid Invitational. It is the 46th annual edition of this meet (Coach Lyons ran in the 15th and 16th annual events). This year there are about 218 other teams; this means a full day of racing. The full schedule is available here, but the races we've entered include:

1:03 Race #14 Sophomore Boys (All Schools)
2:26 Race #18 Girls Varsity "B" (a J.V. race) for Medium and Large schools
3:58 Race #23 Girls Seeded Varsity AAA (Large schools)
4:22 Race #24 Boys Seeded Varsity AAA (Large schools)
4:45 Race #25 Boys Varsity "B" (A J.V. race) for Large schools

Also: 5:10 Race #26 Alumni Open Race. Same 3-mile course. Post entries accepted. Any takers from our fans?

The Sophomore race will also include our Freshmen.

Let's hope for good weather and fast times!

Good For Them

While it was sad to lose two runners to other sports this fall, it is nice to see that they have had some success:

From today's D&C...
Webster Schroeder 1, Webster Thomas 0
Senior Ben Ftau scored midway through the second half for Schroeder (6-0-2). Thomas is 5-2.

And from last Thursday's paper...
Field hockey
Webster Schroeder 4, East Irondequoit Eastridge 0
Becka Irwin had two goals for Webster Schroeder (3-3-1).

Tomorrow's Scouting Report...

...is available on the Google Groups site. Go see how we stack up against Canandaigua, Irondequoit and Victor.

And yesterday I neglected to include links to the results from the Green Mountain Lake Invitational (2010 State Meet course) and the Baldwinsville Invitational (R-H looked dominating).

Fast Times at EA High

So, it was off to the East Aurora Invitational for most of the team this weekend. The squad took advantage of the 3 mile course (rather than 5K), and the relatively flat and fast terrain, to put up some very impressive PRs. All 21 boys and 9 girls that ran in EA PR'd, even adjusting for 3 miles vs. 5K. In fact, the average PR was by over a minute!

The most impressive performance of the day came from Shaylyn Tuite of Mendon, who clocked an incredible 16:38 in the large school Girls race, shattering a very fast course record. The time would have been good for 25th in the large school Boys race (and 5th in the small school Boys), and 4th on the Mendon boys team.

Complete results are available here.

And a bunch of photos are available from the Section VI Runs web site.

Around the League

Basil Marella

R-H coasted thru this meet. Their boys still managed to go 4-0, but their girls can't go easy and win. Irondequoit girls scored a nice 25-30 win over Athena. The race of the day was the Athena boys grabbing a 28-28 win over Irondequoit. Yes, Athena's sixth man was the deciding factor - he beat Irondeqoit's 5th man by 5 seconds to give a displacement point to Irondequoit and win the 6th man tiebreaker.

Harris Whalen

Mendon's 11th girl was 17th in the race, as they dominated the meet, overshadowing Schroeder's 3-1 day. The boys side is where the excitement was, with Mendon pulling out a 27-28 win over Schroeder, thanks to some help from poor flag placement by the Schroeder coaching staff. Brockport's top 2 guys looked good, but their 5th man ran over 21 minutes on the tough course (especially for youngsters).

Parma Park

Hilton had some real problems on their "home" course. The boys are still missing Campbell and T. Eustance, and lost to Victor 27-28, with Z. Eustance just 2 seconds away from pulling out the win. Their girls lost to a Penfield team that looks poised to challenge Fairport for the Sectional title (Leila Mantilla is now a serious XC runner) and to a decent, but not outstanding, Victor team. And the hidden race of the day was the Gates boys edging Penfield, 27-28.

Seneca Park

The most boring meet of the day was the boys meet at Seneca. The dominoes fell like this: Sutherland (wow they come in quick - 6 in 33 seconds) 20, Brighton 39; Brighton 16, HF-L (minus Hoose) 46; HF-L 20, Canandaigua 40; Canandaigua 15, Eastridge 50. No suspense there.

The girls race could have been interesting, but Canandaigua took the day off after losing to Mendon last week (and ahead of their trip to the state meet course in Pawling this coming weekend), so it was an easy win for HF-L and Sutherland also came out on top of Canandaigua with an impressive performance (5th girl in 21:20).

Northampton Park

The Thomas boys had an easy day, as Jared, Cole and Tim coasted to 1-2-3 overall, securing the meet.

On the girls side, it was Fairport that went 1-2-3 overall, although Thomas did have Christina Colon back in action and it looks like she made things interesting.

So Close

The boys took to the Harris Whalen course yesterday to face Brockport, Churchville-Chili, Spencerport and Section V's 3rd-ranked (and 8th in the state in Class A) Pittsford Mendon. With Brockport's lack of depth, this quickly became strictly a Schroeder-Mendon battle. It was close the whole way with Zeccola chasing AJ and Mendon's main pack not too far behind Geoff, ahead of Schroeder's group of 4. As the runners emerged from the woods for the last time, it was really interesting, as Mendon's 5th runner had dropped back and Justin was rapidly closing on their 2-4. As Justin made his move and passed Mendon's 2 & 3, Mendon's 5th made a move and got by Will and Joe. Unfortunately, at the penultimate turn, which was marked, ummm... ambiguously, Justin cut too tight and wound up on the wrong side of the fence, allowing two Mendon runners to get back ahead of him. A valiant effort down the final straight (AJ-esque, in fact) was enough to split the runners, and now the race came down to a battle of Schroeder's 4th man vs Mendon's 5th man, with a final sprint deciding the meet in Mendon's favor, 27-28.

This was a very good performance for the boys team, coming off a hard race on Saturday to face a rested Mendon team on a warm day, and one of the most exciting XC dual meet finishes that I have seen in my 44 years as a fan, runner, fan again and coach!

The girls notched 3 victories on the day, losing only to Mendon and holding off Churchville, who made a late charge to make the meet close. The girls seemed to be more affected by the heat and hills than the boys, as only one girl beat their computer-predicted time. But it wasn't just our girls, as even Shaylyn Tuite was 46 seconds slower than a week ago on the same course.

You Go Girls!

The girls were rewarded for their performance on Saturday, not only with a 4th place trophy, but an appearance in the 2010 debut of the Section V XC rankings! The girls have been ranked 7th by a panel of highly respected coaches: Coach Szczepanik (Hilton), Coach Erwin (Sutherland), Coach Gardner (HFL), Coach Henessey (Penfield) and Coach Johnson (Wayne), here are the rankings, according to a posting at http://sectionv.talksback.com:

1 Pittsford Mendon (A) 50 (5 – 1st place votes)
2 Canandaigua (A) 44
3 Honeoye Falls-Lima(A) 39
4 Penfield (AA) 32
5 Rush Henrietta (AA) 28
6 Fairport (AA) 26
7 Webster Schroeder (AA) 21
8 Victor (A) 11
9 Pittsford Sutherland (A) 10
10 Webster Thomas (AA) 6
Also receiving votes: Brighton (A), Mercy (A) and Wayne (B)

My ballot would not be significantly different, although Fairport should probably be 2nd right now, despite their 5th girl being back a bit in Week 1. And I would have slotted Thomas and Sutherland ahead of Schroeder at this point.

The boys ranking is as follows:
1 McQuaid (A) 48 (3 – 1st place votes)
2 Rush Henrietta (AA) 47 (2 – 1st place votes)
3 Pittsford Mendon (A) 33
4(tie) Brighton (A) 25
4(tie) Hilton (AA) 25
6 Wayne (B) 24
7 Pittsford Sutherland (A) 23
8 Webster Schroeder (AA) 21
9 Honeoye Falls-Lima (A) 16
10 Brockport (AA) 7
Also receiving votes: Irondequoit (A), Webster Thomas (AA)

The battle for the top should remain very close all year. And clearly the positions from 4-9 were split across the ballots. I would have placed Brighton and Sutherland ahead of Mendon, and moved Wayne down below HF-L. Thomas should clearly be in the mix, right behind Schroeder, with Brockport dropping off until they improve their 5th position (19:42 at Mendon W and 19:24 at GCC).

Cougar Results

The results from today's invitational are up at Yen Timing. Here is the link to the overall results. They also have the boys merged results and the girls merged results.

Congrats to the boys for capturing 2nd place overall, behind an awesome McQuaid team. Our boys averaged almost 2 minutes faster than last year at this race (for the 8 that ran both years). Having run against R-H and McQuaid in the same week, I think it's safe to say it will be an epic battle if they meet at the McQuaid invite in two weeks. McQuaid has the incredible 1-2 punch, with their 3-4-5 pack just under a minute back, while R-H all finish close (14 seconds 1-4 at West Seneca today, with Colby and Nick back just a bit).

And what can we say about the girls? 18th place at the Cougar Invite last year; 4th place this year! Annelise, Alaina and Sarah all had major breakthroughs.

Cougar Invitational Information

We're off the the Cougar Invitational at Genesee Community College tomorrow. The bus leaves at 10AM! Information is available here. In addition to the $150 they are charging the school for entry, they may be charging $5 PER CAR for parking at the college. There is no street parking available in the immediate vicinity of the college.

Sadly, Monroe County administrators have taken it upon themselves to limit XC teams to 12 meets per team (up to and including Counties). The New York State rule is 16. Since we have 13 meets on our schedule, our JV team and Varsity team each had to drop one meet. Our Varsity team dropped the Early Season Scramble; the JV team dropped the Cougar Invitational, so we will only be entered in the Varsity races tomorrow.

The JV runners MUST still attend the meet. Our JV practice will be held at the course, which is used for the Sectional race (most likely for the next several years), and is the current planned course for the State Meet in 2012.

Order of Races (TIMES ARE APPROXIMATE)
10:00 Girls Varsity Class D/DD
10:30 Boys Varsity Class D/DD
11:00 Girls JV Class D/DD/C/B
11:30 Boys JV Class D/DD/C/B
12:00 Modified Girls
12:15 Modified Boys
12:30 Girls Varsity Class B/C
1:00 Boys Varsity Class B/C
1:30 Girls JV Class A/AA
2:00 Boys JV Class A/AA
2:30 Girls Varsity Class A/AA
3:00 Boys Varsity Class A/AA

Around the League

Tuesday was opening day for Monroe County XC. Were there any surprises? Yep! Let's look at some of the big and little surprises.

Black Creek

Girls:
Thomas (without Christina?) edged Sutherland 26-29 and it was closer than the score indicates; Shavonna was 2 and 3 seconds ahead of Sutherland’s 2 and 3 girls and Crocetti was 3 and 6 seconds ahead of 4 and 5.

Boys:
Sutherland even better than expected (4 within 17 seconds of Jared, 1-8 gap 74 seconds)
Thomas upset Victor, but no MJ Erb and Reid was 2 minutes slower than at Midlakes

Basil Marella

Girls:
HF-L had a very solid top 3, but needs help to contend in the very tough Class A race. Griffin, an 8th grader from RH almost took the race, but didn't have the last 400m in her.

Boys:
R-H even stronger with the addition of Nick Watson and Mickey Burke (but no Colby yet); Schroeder upset HF-L, 19-36. AJ ran away from Kozyra late, for the win.


Harris Whalen

Girls:
Early chance to see Canandaigua vs Mendon (Preseason #1 & #2 in Monroe County, #10 and #12 in NY State) plus Hilton

Shaylyn Tuite ran 1:15 faster than any girl at Harris Whalen since at least 2005 and led Mendon to a convincing 21-40 win. Hilton didn't bother running 4 of the top 5 expected returnees (ducking the top teams early?) and Athena upended them, 26-29

Boys:
Mendon beat Hilton (but they were missing Zach Eustance and Campbell). Batavia was supposed to be respectable, but did not have 3 of their top 4 potential returnees

Mendon East

Girls:
Fairport easily – picking up a 9th grader to add to their 4 fast returnees; Gates missing Farmer again is very weak

Boys:
Not much expected here, but Irondequoit looked good – 4 in 30 seconds; 5 in 51.

Mendon West

Girls:
Penfield easily as expected, but the surprise was just how fast Mantilla ran, tying the best time on the course since 2005, held by Tuite.

Boys:

Brighton looked awfully good, led by Smolensky making a strong bid for top Monroe County runner and 4 others within 1:10. Brockport has two outstanding runners, but their 5th man was a shocking 3:24 back.

A Nice Start!

So, the league schedule opened up with a surprising 3-1 start for the Boys and an even more surprising performance by the Girls (although it couldn't change the 2-2 outcome for the team).

The boys race started out to form with a boatload of R-H runners in the lead pack with a handful of HF-L kids plus AJ and Geoff. Even approaching the two mile mark, HF-L seemed to have things safely in hand, but a very nice last mile by Justin M, John W and Joe M put them all past HF-L's second man, FTW. The 19 runners who also did the Scramble last Thursday improved by an average of 17 seconds, for a very nice team effort. And while the 1-5 and 1-7 spreads will need to improve further, they were just 1:20 and 1:49, respectively, which allowed the top 7 to all place in the top 8 Schroeder times at Basil Marella. AJ's winning time was 48 seconds ahead of John Hohl's school record.

On the girls' side, Val and Amanda went out at the tail end of a big pack of HF-L and R-H runners. They eventually moved their way up and Val's two-part kick earned her 5th place in a fast 20:00, with Amanda just behind in 7th (20:06). Both were well under Ashley Cocuzzi's school record of 20:37. The top 5 girls all ran strong, with Natalie's big finish making the spread just 2:18 - only McQuaid last year (2:16) had a smaller spread with Val in the race. And Sarah and Katie held on to give us 7 of the top 22 places, which is a great team effort against HF-L and R-H. The girls' improvement over last week's Scramble averaged 1:07 for the 7 girls who ran both races.

Monroe County XC - 2010 Girls Individual Preview

Here are the top 25 (+1) returning girls in Monroe County, based solely on last year's XC performances. No one is close to Shaylyn Tuite at this point. The rest of the top 10 is nearly interchangeable, although TullyRunners gives the edge to Katie Lembo, who kept getting better as the post-season progressed last year. Absent from the list is #34-ranked, Leila Mantilla of Penfield (4:41 1500 at Outdoor States last year), who beat teammate Lembo by 26 seconds in their first meet, to finish just behind the top East Aurora girl.

1 Tuite, Shaylyn Mendon
2 Hughes, Ashton Fairport
3 McCormick, Kate Canandaigua
4 Lembo, Katie Penfield
5 Mack, Kellie Canandaigua
6 Malone, Rachel Fairport
7 Cocchiara, Amanda Hilton
8 Hallock, Allison Mendon
9 D'Amore, Kendall Canandaigua
10 McCormick, Meghan Canandaigua
11 Steinke, Ruth Honeoye Falls Lima
12 Cole, Hannah Honeoye Falls Lima
13 Engle, Katie Honeoye Falls Lima
14 Greiner, Lizzie Rush Henrietta
15 Colon, Christina Thomas
16 Atkins, Morgan Mendon
17 Rosenthal, Jane Fairport
18 Maffett, Megan Spencerport
19 Lawler, Maggie Victor
20 O'Neill, Karli Churchville Chili
21 Lenhardt, Carly Fairport
22 Greiner, Becky Rush Henrietta
23 Tuttle, Georgia Irondequoit
24 Mizes, Alicia Sutherland
25 D'Amore, Lauren Canandaigua
26 Palermo, Val Schroeder

Week 1 Scouting Report Alert

This year I am posting our League meet scouting reports at our Google Group sites, so check out the files that I have just uploaded for a preview of tomorrow's meet at Basil Marella Park (formerly known as English Road Park).

The bottom line is that the Boys and Girls teams are both up against two powerhouses in RH (ranked 5th in the State for boys and unranked - but solid - for girls) and HFL (ranked 12th and 15th in the State for boys and girls), but should be able to earn a split on the day with wins over Odyssey and East Rochester.

Monroe County XC - 2010 Girls Team Preview

Here are the computer's predictions for the Monroe County girls teams this fall. Keep in mind that these are based solely on 2009 XC performances, and there were some considerable shakeups during track season that should alter the expected results. And of course this does not include newcomers, up from the modified ranks, that can have an immediate impact for girls teams (as opposed to boys teams, where we generally see no impact).

Canandaigua 52
Mendon 106
Fairport 113
Honeoye Falls Lima 116
Penfield 156
Hilton 186
Thomas 216
Sutherland 217
Rush Henrietta 217
Irondequoit 289
Batavia 297
Victor 346
Brighton 356
Spencerport 362
Churchville Chili 390
Athena 398
Brockport 412
Schroeder 442
Gates Chili 464
Olympia 530
East Irondequoit 600
Arcadia 654
Odyssey inc
East Rochester inc

Some quick additional notes: I don't expect Canandaigua to run away with the Class A Sectional title in a manner as easy as this would suggest. Also, Penfield is most likely much closer to Fairport in Class AA, given that Leila Mantilla is only ranked 34th, and we saw what she did during track season.

Monroe County XC - 2010 Boys Individual Preview

Here are the top 25 returning from last year, based on XC performances only:


1. Rousell, Jared Thomas
2. Lipani, Lou Arcadia
3. Smolensky, Scotty Brighton
4. Erb, M.J. Victor
5. Kozyra, Nate Rush Henrietta
6. Hoose, Kevin Honeoye Falls Lima
7. Eustance, Tyler Hilton
8. Jones, Jesse Brockport
9. Gumina, Tyler Penfield
10. Fischer, Sean Sutherland
11. Raymond, Alex Rush Henrietta
12. Nasello, AJ Schroeder
13. Burke, Colby Rush Henrietta
14. Reid, Kyle Victor
15. Mateer, Tim Thomas
16. Kandt, Joel Brockport
17. DeClerck, Cole Thomas
18. VanVleck, Matt Mendon
19. Dworkin, Jordan Sutherland
20. Cuddeback, Brad Hilton
21. Pirnie, Andrew Hilton
22. Sweeney, Andrew Rush Henrietta
23. Tobey, Kevin Gates Chili
24. Holbrook, Austin Olympia
25. Jablonski, Kevin Fairport

Early Season Scramble Results

Well, that was a surprisingly good overall performance at Midlakes HS last night. I found the official results here last night, which was also a good performance on someone's part.

Our results sheet is available at the Google Groups site (look under "Files"), but here are some of the highlights:

The Boys average improvement over last year was a whopping 2:36! That is with 10 returning runners included. The median was 2:09. The average improvement of the 19 runners in the Blue & Gold was 54 seconds (median 39), despite yesterday's course being 5K vs 3mi.

The Girls had an even better performance, with the 3 girls who ran last year improving by 1:35, 5:40 and 6:58. The improvement over Blue & Gold (5 girls) averaged 2:56 (median 1:43).

The Soph/Frosh boys had a chance to really shine in this format, and would have easily walked away with the team title by placing 3-4-13-16-27. Will, Justin R, Eric M and Ethan claimed four of the top 9 all time Early Season Scramble Schroeder performances.

For the girls, Natalie and Sarah notched the 6th and 7th best Schroeder times at this meet, behind only Val from last year and the top 4 girls from the talented 2007 squad.

Coming Soon: Monroe County Boys Individual Preview

Monroe County XC - 2010 Boys Team Preview

Here are the preseason computer rankings for Monroe County Boys. These are based strictly on last year's XC performances and have not been updated with track season efforts. As would be expected, RH is the clear favorite, with their 4 sophomores from last year all returning. After that, there is a lot of room for change among the order of the next 7 teams, as just a few seconds per man can quickly add or subtract 25 points. All of the top 8 teams, except Thomas, show up in the preseason state rankings at TullyRunners.

The good guys show up down in 12th place, but I expect to see some relative improvement, especially at the 4 and 5 spots, vs what the computer sees.

Rush Henrietta 81
Hilton 132
Sutherland 143
Brighton 168
Victor 183
Honeoye Falls Lima 201
Thomas 207
Mendon 222
Irondequoit 268
Penfield 273
Brockport 294
Schroeder 308
Gates Chili 325
Batavia 325
Fairport 353
Arcadia 424
Odyssey 452
Athena 513
Spencerport 522
Churchville Chili 539
Canandaigua 570
Olympia 630
East Rochester 664
East Irondequoit 759

Back To School

Enjoy your last day of summer vacation (while you wrap up your summer reading assignment)! Tomorrow, it's back to the old school routine. We've had some 8am practices, but I imagine sleep habits will have to change substantially as many of you have to catch pre-7am buses.

We are now just 7 days from our first league meet, and it is a doozy, with RH and HFL included. Coupled with some extra work that we have planned this week, it becomes quite important that you get plenty of sleep as we prepare for this meet.

Keep in mind that the practice schedule is a little different this week. Today at Schroeder, then one day at Webster Park before heading to Midlakes HS on Thursday for the Early Season Scramble and English Road on Friday to sample the course for next Tuesday's meet. We wrap up on Saturday with a point-to-point run, so we will meet at Webster Park, but finish up at North Ponds Park.

Finally, prior to our first league meet, I will be posting the preseason view of Monroe County Boys and Girls, Team and Individual. These are not very scientific, since they rely solely on data from the 2009 season, but they do give a good indicator of rough expectations in 2010.

Happy Labor Day!

Coach Klehr mentioned the Dash in the Dark highlight video. It is located here.

Next up for the JV team is the Early Season Scramble at Midlakes HS. The Varsity is not racing until the league opener a week from tomorrow. More on that later.

Here is the Early Season Scramble schedule:
4:30 girls frosh/soph race
5:10 boys frosh/soph race
5:50 girls junior/senior race
6:30 boys junior/senior race

[Semi-]Complete meet information is available in this PDF file.

Last year's results are available here.

Dash in the Dark

We had some pleasant surprises at our first interscholastic meet of the season.

In the girls varsity race, Val and Amanda both won medals, placing 7th and 9th in 13:14 and 13:15, respectively. Both girls ran very nice negative splits (Val by 12 seconds, Amanda by 31!). Meanwhile, Alaina, Katie and Sarah all made huge improvements in their per-mile pace, compared to the Blue & Gold meet. The girls JV race was run concurrently, and Megan, Lillian and Lindsay all had excellent first miles, and should be able to improve rapidly as their endurance continues to improve.

The boys varsity "A" team managed to pick up the win, with AJ and Geoff earning medals for 5th and 6th places (10:35 and 10:39) and Justin M posting a solid 11:16. The "B" team ran well, with John W, Justin R and Joe M finishing within 12 seconds of each other. John K had the biggest improvement of the varsity runners, knocking 34 seconds per mile off his Blue & Gold pace.

In the boys JV race, Zach had the fastest time on the team, by almost a minute, and was 4th overall. Jacob D had the second best time, but it was not quite enough, even with David A's 43 sec/mile improvement from Blue & Gold, for the "A" team to catch the "B" team. The "C" and "D" teams showed huge improvement from the Blue & Gold, averaging 1:18 per mile faster.

Finally, the Open race saw some good Webster performances, led by Will's second place finish (behind only Coach Tytler from Irondequoit). Eric M was 6th and Annelise was 4th among the girls. The other largest improvements over Blue & Gold were shown by Mike H and Patrick.

Complete results are available on Yellowjacket Racing's 2010 Results page (scroll all the way down to the September results).

Tomorrow, We Race

OK, our season gets underway tomorrow, just as the Bills are playing their final preseason game (I guess I'll have to TiVo that). We're participating in what seems to be a very interesting early-season format, a XC Relay, under the lights - the "Dash in the Dark" at Oakfield-Alabama High School. Here is some information concerning the meet:

Schedule
6:00pm OPEN RACE
6:30pm Junior Varsity Girls
7:20pm Junior Varsity Boys
8:10pm Varsity Girls
9:00pm Varsity Boys

Format
3 x 2 mile XC relay, with each runner completing two loops of the one mile course

Concession Stand
Concession Stand will have t-shirts and food, drink, and snacks for sale

Directions from Schroeder
104 West to
590 South to
490 West to
Exit to for Bergen (Rt 33),
turn right on Rt 33 (West), go 0.2 miles
turn right on Rt 19 (North), go 0.3 miles
turn left on Rt 262 (West), go 16.6 miles
turn right on Rt 63 (North), school is on the right (0.7 miles)

You can avoid downtown traffic, if necessary, by taking 590S-390S-Thruway West to Batavia exit to Rt 63 North.

It's Not the Heat, It's the Stupidity

OK, so we appear to be headed for 90 again today (and probably tomorrow and Thursday), so it's a good time to point to some of my favorite Runner's World articles on heat.

This one discusses some of the barriers posed by heat and how to overcome them.

Here is an article with a couple of stories and then some tips (avoid caffeine!)

Here are a few more tips (although some are geared toward beginners).

Remember, practice today is at 3:45pm (at Schroeder), with pizza (bring $3) and WABO to follow.

Blue & Gold Results

Gold swept all 3 races on Saturday, thanks to several outstanding performances for so early in the season. 5 of the top 9 Blue & Gold Boys times were achieved this year, and 3 of the top 4 Girls times were set. AJ's time was a School Record for the Webster Park course. Meanwhile, Val and Amanda posted the 3rd and 4th fastest times in Schroeder history on this Webster Park course.

Boys

Nasello, AJ 5:32 11:13 16:31
Kelly, Geoffrey 5:42 11:37 17:18
Matthew, Justin 6:10 12:17 17:51
Wiseman, John 6:10 12:18 18:10
Makowski, Joe 6:03 12:25 18:28
Reed, Justin 6:21 12:53 18:41
Meritt, Alex 6:21 12:53 18:42
Fitzgerald, Ethan 6:21 12:53 18:59
Killigrew, John 6:35 13:18 19:51
Mallery, Eric 6:20 13:32 20:14
Dana, Steven 6:35 13:40 20:24
Lyons, Zach 6:41 13:54 20:44
Devries, Jacob 6:56 14:20 21:04
Lipari, Philip 7:06 14:54 21:51
Wicks, Joe 7:17 14:58 21:52
Eberth, Jake 7:19 15:01 21:53
Doherty, Patrick 7:24 15:12 22:25
Ash, David 7:24 15:19 22:47
Benitez, Juan 7:42 16:11 22:56
Hohl, Michael 7:24 15:30 23:05
Thompson, Ben 7:48 15:57 23:32
Patel, Arjun 7:24 15:45 23:37
Killigrew, Kevin 23:38
Bay, Cooper 8:05 17:14 25:46
Hughes, Joe 8:08 17:15 25:51
Way, David 8:00 17:14 26:15
Hughes, Jake 8:15 19:12 28:44
Snover, James 9:18 20:12 29:57
Ford, Mike 9:47 21:00 30:26
Hamouda, Amir 9:47 21:38 33:20

Girls
Palermo, Val 6:56 14:30 20:56
Paratore, Amanda 6:56 14:30 20:57
Bay, Anneleise 7:15 14:56 21:51
Bailey, Alaina 7:45 16:26 24:15
Fitzgerald, Natalie 7:51 16:33 24:15
Edwards, Katie 7:51 16:44 25:46
Yursaitis, Sarah 8:10 17:24 25:51
Esley, Lillian 9:42 20:54 31:25
Wehrle, Jenn 10:39 23:28 34:58
Claire 10:44 23:28 34:59

Hojack Trail

Since our long run was on the Hojack Trail today, I thought I'd document the distances involved. I used gmap-pedometer to measure today's route (saved here).

We started near the "Start" line at North Ponds Park. Here are the distances on the way out:
Start of Hojack Trail: 0.87 (1.74 out and back)
Hard Rd: 1.58 (3.15)
Klem Rd: 2.10 (4.21)
Van Alstyne: 2.67 (5.34)
Drumm: 3.27 (6.53)
Vosburg: 3.83 (7.65)
End of Trail: 4.27 (8.54)

I haven't typed in the Blue & Gold results, so look for those in tomorrow's post!

Blue and Gold Rosters

Here are the rosters for today's Blue and Gold meet (* = team captain)...

Girls

Blue
Katie E
Allie E
Lillian E
*Val P
Jen W
Sarah Y

Gold
Alaina B
*Annelise B
Natalie F
Claire L
Amanda P

Boys Varsity

Blue
Steven D
Jacob D
Zach L
Joe M
Alex M
*AJ N
Justin R

Gold
Jake E
Ethan F
*Geoff K
John K
Eric M
Justin M
John W

Boys JV

Blue
Juan B
Patrick D
Amir H
Michael H
Jake H
Joe H
Kevin K
*Arjun P
Jordan T

Gold
*David A
Cooper B
Mike F
Aric J
Phil L
James S
Ben T
Joe W

2009 results are here

2008 results are here

2007

Boys

Lyons, Nate 18:31
Brett, Alex 18:58
Grzebien, Patryk 18:59
Miller, Kenny 19:30
Saunders, Tyler 20:26
Owczarczyk, Marcin 20:58
Bober, Jacob 21:30
Whittemore, Steve 21:45
McKeown, Trevor 22:18
Kelly, Geoffrey 22:25
Prahler, Josh 22:36
Pawluk, Drew 22:42
Farrell, Tom 24:35
Wiseman, John 25:09
Urbanek, Gary 25:12
Rekers, Arik 25:32
Piotrowski, Wade 26:02
Patel, Arjun 26:41
Koshak, Zach 27:02

Girls

Rieger, Megan 22:10
Lyons, Chelsea 22:48
Sherelis, Brianna 23:03
McMahon, Clare 23:33
Dilai, Khristyna 28:33
Wiegand, Sarah 28:55


2006 (at Center Park)

Boys

Hohl, John 17:44
Priddy, Marc 19:07
Grzebien, Patryk 20:23
Brett, Alex 20:26
Saunders, Tyler 20:38
Mauro, Chris 21:07
Piotrowski, Wade 21:10
Hohl, Daniel 21:11
Lyons, Nate 21:22
Siviy, Greg 21:41
Owczarczyk, Marcin 22:56
Krawiec, Kyle 23:36
Pilato, John 23:42
McKeown, Trevor 23:50
Farrell, Tom 24:46
Johnson, David 24:49
Pawluk, Andrew 25:06
Rekers, Arik 29:18
Miller, Kenny 29:55

Girls

Cocuzzi, Ashley 21:41
Sherelis, Brianna 23:15
McMahon, Clare 23:39
Duke, Emily 23:48
Albert, Erin 23:49
Lyons, Chelsea 24:52
Miller, Sarah 24:52
Varechtchouk, Olga 25:12
Cole, Emily 25:18
Cheung, May Gin 25:24
Neels, Casey 29:10
Mathew, Tricia 29:15
McMahon, Paige 29:56
Nickason, Kelly 29:57

And We're Back

Now that the XC season is underway, you can expect to see some notes back here again.

Tomorrow is the 5th Annual Blue & Gold Meet at Webster Park. Practice is scheduled for 5:30. I would expect the race to go off between 6:30 and 6:45. The teams should be announced at practice today.

I should also point out that the link to the "Current Practice Schedule" on the left-hand side of this page has been updated to actually point to the current practice schedule (which also includes meets).

Medals All Around

So, the Webster Schroeder track team was well represented at the State Championships, and all of the representatives scored medals, thanks to some outstanding performances. On Friday, Brycen had an incredible race to win the Division 1 Championship, while tying the Section V record, with a 46.81. An ailing AJ anticipated another event and only ran 2:02. Meanwhile, Kevin had solid performances in the HH, HJ and Shot to grab 6th place after Day 1 of a very competitive Pentathlon.

On Saturday, the great efforts continued. Brycen ran to win the Federation 400, and did so, with a 47. Kevin had a decent Long Jump and an excellent 1500 to reach the podium, finishing 5th in Division 1 and 7th for the Federation. Finally, the 4 x 800 relay team exceeded all expectations with a 5th place finish, running an incredible 7:47, and coming within 2 seconds of the 35-year-old Section V record.

Splits:
Nico 60.27 1:57.53
Ben 57.81 1:59.99
AJ 55.87 1:57.22
Brycen 54.49 1:52.60

Nico went from last (18th) at the 400 to 4th at the handoff. Ben held off a boatload of challengers until the last 200. AJ made up ground on the nearby teams (but Deir did catch him at the end). Brycen took off, left Mangan far behind on the first lap. When Mangan and Burnt Hills caught up with 200 to go, Brycen again went to work and secured 5th place, while making a valiant effort at catching 4th (from at least 5 seconds back).

What a weekend!

States!

Today and tomorrow are the NY State Championships for Track and Field. Some important links are below.

Order of Events

"Live" Results

We are represented in three straight track events today:
2:30 - Brycen in the 400m (Division 1 Finals)
3:00 - Kevin in the Pent High Hurdles
3:20 - AJ in the 800m Championship

State Qualifiers

Complete results from the State Qualifiers are here for the boys, and here for the girls.

It was another fine meet for the Schroeder Boys. Geoff had the first final of the meet, the Steeplechase. It was run as a combined race for Division 1 and Division 2. Geoff tried to go out conservatively - he was in last place for the first lap - but the crowd was out too quickly, so Geoff's place was quite good, but the time was a bit slower than Counties.

Geoff 77 2:35 3:55 5:19 6:45 8:12 9:43 10:32

Brycen won the 400 in 48.20, with his very strong move past Twombly on the back stretch looking good, and the 200 split was very fast, but the last 50m proved to be a bit of a struggle.

Nico was up in the 400 hurdles and went out quicker than usual and was leading through much of the race, but the closing speed of the guys from East and Edison was just too much. Nico did PR in 56.73.

Next up was the 800, and we had three entrants. The race went out very quickly, the top 4 came through around 56, with our pack back at 60. AJ, confident that there were not two 1:56.94 or better times to be had, cruised through the second lap, while Nate and Joe went after the rest of the pack. Nate moved all the way up to 4th, and Joe was able to grab 6th. Andrew Pirnie had an incredible run to win in 1:56.55 and Knapp from Arcadia gave AJ a scare, but did miss the state cutoff time.

Nate 60 2:01.74
Joe 60 2:03.38
AJ 60 2:06.79

Finally, it was time for the main event - the much anticipated 4 x 800 relay. With R-H pulling Nick Watson from the open 800, it was clear that they thought they had a shot at HF-L and/or Schroeder. Meanwhile, Brighton was actually the second seed, and Fairport's relay members were all running just the one event.

The leadoff legs were very quick, right from the line, and Ben was pushed back to last place. He made a strong move on the backstretch during the second lap, and moved up to 5th, behind Hilton, R-H, Fairport and HF-L. Despite Nico's very fast first lap, he did not close much of the gap on those teams, but as they faded on the second lap, he shot by Hilton, then caught Fairport and R-H, but still trailed HF-L by about two seconds. AJ made up the gap on Deir on the first lap, with a quick 54.87. As the hit the top of the final stretch, AJ tried to pass and managed to pull even, but that's how they finished. Brycen took the handoff on the outside, but Mangan let him pull in front, and followed him thru the 400 in a pedestrian 61, before making a very strong move. Brycen chose to wait, rather than covering the move, and even allowed Watson to catch him. With 200 to go, Brycen took off and was able to finish 4 seconds ahead of R-H for the state berth (R-H was also under the state standard), but the move came too late to challenge Mangan, who won by over two seconds. Still, the 7:54.55 finish time crushed last year's school record time by 15 seconds.

Ben 60 2:01.81
Nico 56.7 1:57.50
AJ 54.87 1:54.18
Brycen 61 2:00.75

Kevin had a great day in the Pent, winning the Hurdles, the High Jump and the Long Jump, and finishing with a 5:05 in the 1500, to grab the overall win.

Val went 62.35 in the girls 400. She was joined by the weight girls, who went 3-4-6 in the Discus along with 6th in the Shot.

Sometimes A Tie Is Better Than Kissing Your Sister

Being the optimist that I am, I see the team's fantastic performance on Saturday and the patches that everyone received, and I see Sectional Champions! Going into the meet as 11-point underdogs to three-time defending champions, Edison, we knew it would be a challenge, but the guys stepped up to the challenge and earned the [co-]championship by equaling Edison's 91 points.

Complete results are available here.

For us, things went mostly according to the seeding, but there were a few gains that enabled our ultimate victory:
Kevin grabbed second in the hurdles (was seeded 3rd)
The 4x4 relay finished 2nd, after being seeded 3rd
Brycen took third in the 100 (was seeded tied for 3-4-5)
Nate worked his way up for a 3rd in the 3200 (was seeded 8th!)

I'll have to post splits at a later time.

Test Post

This was sent via e-mail to test remote posting capability.

What A Meet!

Last Saturday, Schroeder successfully defended our Monroe County title by scoring a whopping 108 points to top the 22-team field, with Gates scoring 69 and Rush-Henrietta scoring 66.

Big performances were the order of the day. Our first win of the day came in the first event, with Kevin Enck winning the hurdles. Nico made it 2-for-2 for Schroeder by winning the Steeplechase, and Geoff added 4 points by finishing 5th.

Nico 78 2:36 3:55 5:14 6:34 7:55 9:16 10:00
Geoff 80 2:40 3:59 5:21 6:44 8:10 9:38 10:26

After being shut out in the 4 x 100 relay, we bounced back in the 4 x 400, with the always-exciting Brycen almost coming up with the win from 5-6 seconds back.

Kyle 53.07
Joe Wi 54.73
AJ 52.25
Brycen 47.21

We didn't manage to score in the tough 1600 race.

Adrian 69 2:19 3:30 4:39.3
Steve 69 2:19 3:31 4:52

Brycen went back-to-back in the 100 / 400 and grabbed 2nd / 1st. Next up was the 3200, with Geoff, Nate and Adrian in the fast heat, but seeded well back from scoring position. But first, John W represented in the "slow" heat, coming thru in 5:19 before the week's effort took its toll. In the next heat, Nate was our main man, since the others had already run, and after a 4:58 mile left him barely in the top 15, he picked his way through the field to grab 7th.

Nate 73 2:28 3:42 4:58 6:15 7:32 8:49 9:59
Geoff 74 2:31 3:49 5:08 6:27 7:49 9:08 10:28
John W 81 2:40 3:59 5:19 6:41 8:05 9:28 10:51
Adrian 76 2:34 3:54 5:17 6:42 8:09 9:34 11:02

Up next was Nico, completing a very unusual and challenging double, by winning the 400 Hurdles in 57. This was followed by AJ executing a very nice strategy to win the 800.

AJ 57 1:55.99
Joe W 62 2:02.70
Justin M 64 2:05.34

Next, Brycen put the meet well in control, with a third straight Schroeder victory, this one coming in the 200, which also served as the rubber match in Brycen's victory over young Brian Smith from Athena.

That left the 4 x 800 relay. Since it was not needed for the meet, AJ sat out, allowing Joe W to try to double back from the open 800. He ran a very poor tactical race, winding up in outside lanes far too much. A fine run by Steve put us in the hunt, before an incredible run by Ben moved us up to second place. Nico made a valiant effort to try to catch Brighton, but the 6 or 7 second lead was just a bit too much.

Joe W 62.68 2:07.77
Steve 58.40 2:01.89
Ben 61.36 2:01.30
Nico 60.27 2:00.59

I do have the splits from our victory at the JV Championships last Thursday, but those will have to wait until tomorrow.

JV Day

Today is the JV Championship at Rush-Henrietta. I hope all team members are rewarded today with conditions conducive to good times, so that today's results accurately reflect all of the effort that the team has put forth this season!

Victory!

OK, so last night's exciting 71-70 win over Fairport has encouraged me to find time that I don't have to post something here. It is 6:40pm, I am still at work, and I still have some financials to pull together for a 9am meeting, but the story needs to be told!

The scouting report had us earning a close, but comfortable win; however, it was clear after two events that Fairport had brought their A-Game. Hitting the final hurdle cost us a point in the 110 Highs, and AJ got edged out for 2nd in the 400 on a call by the official that I was glad I did not have to make. So, we were already down by 3 points when our #2 sprinter reported that the tape job was not working on his blisters, indicating another point (or 3) would be lost in the 100. Adrian ran with near-perfect tactics to grab 2nd in the 1600, behind Nico, who quickly came back to win the 400 Hurdles. As quickly as the distance team looked to be getting the job done, things went south for us as well. AJ's ankle was in rough shape following the 400, so he was out of the 800. Steve and a heavy-legged Nate, who had raced nearly three hours in the previous two days, were no match for the strong Fairport 800 crew. Steve's 2:03 PR was only good for 4th place. Meanwhile, we found out our top Pole Vaulter had no-heighted, thanks to starting too high, given his sore back.

It was starting to look like we would need to win two relays to salvage the meet. But some good news trickled in from the field. Our 7th grade Triple Jumper had apparently grabbed 2nd, although one jumper had an attempt remaining. It also appeared our High Jumper was on the way to an expected, but difficult win, after having pulled off a surprise win in the Long Jump. A third place in the Shot by our #2 guy, plus a surprise 3rd by our #3 sprinter in the 200 meant that we would only need one relay.

Which relay do you pick when you've won the 100, gone 1-3 in the 200 and 400, and were swept in the 800? The 4 x 100 or 4 x 400? No, you load up the 4 x 800! And we did. And won comfortably in 8:17, wrapped up with a strong 1:59 third leg by AJ, giving Brycen a sizable lead, which left no doubt in the outcome.

Splits:

1600
Nico 70 2:18 3:27 4:38
Adrian 71 2:21 3:32 4:41
Joe M 77 2:33 3:50 5:06
Zach 80 2:46 4:09 5:31
Steven 80 2:46 4:12 5:35
Ben T 81 2:48 4:15 5:36

800
Steve 62 2:03.5
Nate 61 2:05.3
Joe W 62 2:07.6
Justin R 66 2:09.0
Will 68 2:14.4
Alex 67 2:15.0

Joe M 71 2:20.9
John K 72 2:29.0
Zach 76 2:33.1
CJ 76 2:33.5
Steven 75 2:34.1
Jake 77 2:36.3
Mike 78 2:36.9
David 81 2:49.1

3200
Geoff 77 2:35 3:50 5:04 6:18 7:34 8:51 10:09
Nico 77 2:35 3:50 5:04 6:22 7:44 9:03 10:19
Adrian 78 2:36 3:52 5:09 6:29 7:49 9:09 10:28
John W 84 2:44 4:01 5:20 6:40 8:03 9:26 10:44
Arik 89 3:01 4:37 6:12 7:50 9:29 11:09 12:43

4 x 800
Benn 66 2:06 Nico 65 2:09 Joe W 69 2:22
Steve 65 2:10 Justin R 71 2:22 Joe Wi 80 2:53
AJ 58 1:59 Justin M ?? 2:30 Joey 97 3:17
Brycen 61 2:02 Geoff ?? 2:19 Joe M 70 2:24

Alex 72 2:24 Will 72 2:24 Adrian 69 2:16
John K 76 2:35 Steven 79 2:43 Zach 84 2:49
David 81 2:50 Ben T 80 2:40 Jake 84 2:45
John W 75 2:26 CJ 77 2:32 Jeff 77 2:33

Brighton Relays

So, we had our "bye" week this week, meaning a second week in a row with no dual meet. That should have us hungry for our next race. And the races will come fast and furious after today. As I pointed out at practice last week, the JV workout count is rapidly declining; indeed, because of the meet schedule, after today's workout, there will only be one JV workout left! That isn't to say we won't throw in a small bonus session or two...

Anyway, before we get to our "two dual meet" week (I still don't understand why the R-H meet was postponed, given that their baseball team managed to play a home game to completion that same afternoon), we have the Brighton Relays on Friday (and the JV Relays at Gates for many of you). I looked back at last year's results (available here), and here is what I see:

4x1600 (we should be faster than these times):
Brighton 19:11.4
McQuaid 19:30

800 (Schroeder sub-2s this time?):
David Geary 1:57.4
Brian Dinan 1:58.7
AJ Nasello 2:00:0
Kevin Richard 2:00.5
Ryan Vanzo 2:00.9

DMR (this should be achievable):
Brighton 11:56.0
Hilton 12:03.1

2x3200 (tough race):
McQuaid 20:11.8 (10:05, 10:06)
Brighton 20:21.3 (10:02, 10:18)

4x800 (end of the night):
Brighton 8:35.0
Arcadia 8:47.8

Results do not seem to be online from the last time we competed as a team (in 2008).

I Lost, but Team Slayer FTW

OK, despite my best intentions, I have not made the time to update the blog recently, so I have some catching up to do. Tax season was especially painful this year because I had new forms to fill out and then I had to deal with multiple college financial aid applications (since Nate still hadn't decided on his final choice).

I have to start by saying, Great Workout Today! Despite the less than ideal conditions, just about everyone hit appropriate times on the intervals. As I pointed out to the JV guys, there are only 3 more workouts (2 of them next week and a final workout on May 10th) before JV counties on May 20th, since there are JV meets on Apr 30 and May 3, 5, 7, 12, 14, 17.

Next, here are the long-awaited splits from the Thomas meet on 4/13.

1600 (with probably a school-record 17 entrants!)
Nico 74 2:24 3:32 4:35
Geoff 75 2:25 3:35 4:45
Adrian 75 2:25 3:35 4:45
Victor 76 2:26 3:37 4:50
Benn 80 2:38 3:53 4:59
John W 80 2:36 3:52 5:03
Alex 80 2:40 3:55? 5:08
Will 81 2:40 3:56? 5:09
Justin R 81 2:40 3:57? 5:09
Ethan 82 2:40 4:05 5:22
CJ 82 2:43? 4:10 5:25
John K 82 2:46 4:12 5:32
Zach 84 2:49 4:13 5:33
Arik 87 2:57 4:30? 6:00
Arjun 86 2:56 4:30? 6:01
Jake 89 3:01 4:37? 6:16
David 93 3:09? 4:57 6:38

800
Steve 64 2:07
Joe 64 2:08
Adrian 64 2:11
Justin R 75 2:27
Will 76 2:28
John K 81 2:40
CJ 83 2:40
Zach 82 2:40
Jake 86 2:48
Arik 85 2:49
David 91 3:02

3200 (AJ doubling back from the 200)
Nate 77 2:37 3:57 5:17 6:34 7:52 9:11 10:22
Geoff 80 2:42 4:02 5:21 6:39 7:58 9:16 10:30
AJ 78 2:41 4:03 5:27 6:51 8:13 9:34? 10:50
John W 86 2:51 4:14 5:38 7:04 8:29 9:53 11:12
Joe M 83 2:45 4:11 5:37 7:04 8:30 9:58 11:25
Arjun 95 3:18 5:01 6:48 8:39 10:41 12:40 14:25

4 x 800 Relay (5 teams, again!)
Steve 63 2:08 Nico 62 2:07
AJ 66 2:11 Adrian 68 2:17
Geoff 66 2:17 Nate 61 2:14
Joe W 66 2:13 Victor 66 2:15

CJ 78 2:39 John K 76 2:39 Zach 78 2:43
Will 76 2:29 Justin R 76 2:27 Alex 74 2:31
John W 73 2:25 Benn 76 2:30 Joe M 75 2:34
Jake 79 2:53 David 86 3:01 Arik 80 2:50

Hydrate

Tomorrow's meet at Rush-Henrietta will be warm (at least at the start), but it looks like it may not make the 80s as initially forecast. Still, let's take this opportunity to think about hydration again.

You know that bloated feeling you get, after drinking about a quart of water? Not the kind of stomach you want to deal with during a race. To avoid that last-minute guzzling of water when your body gets out to the meet and realizes that it is warm out, you need to start the hydration process the day before the meet. Also, during school on Wednesday, you should periodically "top off" the tank. It's much better to take 3-4 drinks of 6-8 oz. than to drink 16-24 ozs. a couple of times. This can ensure that the water is in your blood, where it belongs and is needed, when it comes time to race, and not in your stomach.

R-H has an outstanding team - as you know, they won the indoor Sectional title - so this meet will be a great early-season test for us. Let's be prepared!

Dewey Defeats Truman

OK, the D&C's high school sports headline wasn't completely wrong, but it was certainly not sending the correct message. Perhaps it was some sort of April Fools joke. Technically, since the boys events were first, the boys meet ended first and Penfield "christened their new track", with a 74-67 loss to Schroeder. I'd also like to know who is this "Kevin Sprailing" guy, that apparently beat Twombly and Brycen Spratling in the 100 and Brycen in the Long Jump. This meant that Brycen got no ink for his victory in the 200, in a very fast time.

The distance crew put in a very nice performance, outscoring Penfield, 24-8, including an impressive sweep in the 800. And clinching the meet with the dominating win in the 4 x 800 relay I'll add the rest of the splits later, but for now, here are the 4x800 relay times, since I had to fly out before many saw the splits.

Nico 2:07
Steve W 2:17
Nate 2:07
AJ 2:05

Ethan 2:29
Victor 2:25
Benn 2:25
Joe W 2:18

Will 2:30
Justin R 2:32
John W 2:25
Geoff 2:22

Alex 2:31
David 3:12
John K 2:41
CJ 2:38

Joe M 2:35
Steve D 2:50
Jake 3:04
Zach 2:44

I had to leave quickly, as yesterday was officially proclaimed "MIT day in Rochester" by Mayor Duffy, in honor of the 100th anniversary of the MIT club of Rochester!

Brand New Track

Hidden on the right side of this page of the D&C, is the announcement that today's meet will mark the opening of the new Penfield track. We have the opportunity to help Penfield start 0-1 on their track, so let's be ready to make that happen.

Here's a reminder of their indoor performances (1000/1600/3200):
Gumina 2:45 / 4:33 / 10:20
Hospers 2:49 / 4:45 / 10:36
Crandell 2:51 / 4:56
Sprague - / 4:56 / 10:34
Harney - / 4:55 / 10:57

Weather

We've talked before about the changing weather, especially in the spring. That means come prepared for any conditions, just about every day. It also affects our workouts. It doesn't make a lot of sense to take large periods of recovery (while doing faster intervals), if it means allowing the muscles to cool off too quickly. At a minimum, this can cause a slow or inefficient start to the next interval as your muscles get back into the effort. At worst, this can lead to an injury.

During most of the XC season, we are able to plan the workouts well in advance, knowing that the running conditions will generally be favorable. During track, we have to take the opportunities as they come. The good news is that later in the season, when we want to do faster intervals with more recovery, the weather tends to be much more cooperative during track season, and we are able to head into the taper period with better control over the workouts.

Two Weeks

Well, our spring track opener is now just two weeks away, and this week certainly feels like spring. Of course, we are in western New York, so don't start to think that it will be smooth sailing from here. AccuWeather says that this week should be mighty fine, but things could be a little nasty next week, with some snow even managing to fall.

Since we will only practice indoors under the most extreme conditions, please make sure to come to practice prepared to deal with whatever elements challenge us! Even a hat and gloves would be appropriate to add to your bag.

This will also be true for our meets throughout the season. As the sun sinks lower, even in May, it can cool off very quickly. Those of you that have had chattering teeth by the time you had to start your 4 x 800m leg can attest to that.

Indoor Nationals

Congratulations to the Schroeder participants in the Nike Indoor Nationals at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston. In my college days, that area was not one of the best places to be, but they have done a great deal of work in the area, and put up a very nice indoor track facility.

Results are available here. The 4 x 1 mile team put together a nice performance, running 18:37 for 14th place. Val ran 62.27 to finish 11th in the Frosh 400m race. And Kevin Enck showed that he could use a little bit of distance training, running just 3:20 in the 1000m, but still managed to place 18th.

With our first meet just 15 days away, our competitors from Nationals can't take much time off, to ensure they have enough practices to compete.

Opening Day!

So, spring sports start today, and I will resume the blog. Nate is working out at Schroeder today at 3:30pm, and anyone else is welcome to join him. Official track practices start up on Wednesday. Please note that it is only 3 weeks from Wednesday until our first meet. We are at Penfield, which no longer has a ghetto track, but our last meet there was rained out anyway! It will be a nice early-season test, since they can throw Gumina and Hospers at us.

Belated Happy New Year!

OK, so the team woke me up with the Rochester Relays performances, and I will post again!

The Webster Distance Runners led the Schroeder Boys team to victory at the Rochester Relays, as Schroeder scored 40 of their 75 points in distance events to defeat 21 other scoring teams, including R-H (68.5) and Edison (52).

The Girls finished 12th of 23 with 26 points, with 5 coming in distance events, plus 3 in the walk and 5 in the 4 x 400, which included some distance folks.

Here are my favorite boys results:
1. First place in the 4-person 1600m race, with the following performances - Nico first in 4:38, Steve an impressive 5th in 4:42, AJ 6th in 4:43 and Geoff 15th in 4:49. I like how we suddenly have a boatload of sub-5 (and even sub-4:50) milers.

2. Third place in the 2-person 3200m race, with Geoff and Adrian each running 10:18. Very fast times with 6 weeks remaining until Sectionals.

3. First place in the 4 x 800 relay in a school record 8:16. It looks like it may have been Steve in 2:05, Joe W in 2:10, Nico in 2:01 and AJ in 1:59.

4. Second place in the 5-4-3-2-lap relay. It looks like Adrian did the 5 in 2:50 and Joe W did the 2 in 56. Not sure who did the other legs in 3:45 (perhaps a 2:12 and a 1:33?).

5. Third place in the DMR. Steve did the 1200 in 3:32 - not sure of the other legs. Clue me in.

6. No points in the SMR, but it looks like a good time was had (SMR Forever!).

I should include the Shot Put relay up there, since I recall Joey C doing a 4 x 800, right? And he put up a 49-foot throw! Also, Kevin Enck could use some extra distance workouts to knock some time off his 1500 in the Pent, and he was a big factor in the High Jump (10) and Hurdle (6) points.

The girls seem to have some work to do, to get back in top shape, as the 2-person 3000m race saw Katie Edwards run 12:14 and Annelise Bay run 12:18. Annelise also jumped in the walk, to help Rebecca Irwin score 3 points. The 4-person 1500m race included a couple of newcomers: Rachel Nesbitt (6:12) and Morgan Urbanek (6:23) splitting up Katie (6:04) and Ann Hight (6:25).

I see that the Varsity returns to RIT on Friday, 1/22. That looks like a date that I can make.