Congratulations East Aurora!

A hearty "way to go!" for my old school!  The girls turned in an incredible performance at the Nike Cross Nationals to capture 4th place!  What makes the result even more impressive is how small the school is compared to most others that manage to qualify.  For example, my lovely wife's old school also happened to qualify this year, by winning the Northeast regional, which was held in conjunction with the New York regional at Bowdoin Park (separate races of course).  Pennsbury High School has almost 3400 students; East Aurora about 700.

OK, maybe this is old news now, but I've been busy, and I want to make sure I have a chance to congratulate them.

Coach Walt McLaughlin has consistently done an excellent job of having the kids ready to go for the right races at the end of the year, but this one takes the cake.  The mud in Oregon consistently takes a toll on various teams that compete there, and while EA has never been in the NXN finals before this year (a couple of near-misses, and the whim of the at-large selection committee have prevented that), they have traveled out there repeatedly for the open race.  So, they knew what they were preparing for.

Complete results are available here.  The TullyRunners site also has the speed ratings, which make it look like EA did not run particularly well, but that really just shows the weakness of that system where 3 seconds = 1 point, always.  When a course is tougher and the field spreads out more, the differential should be more than 3 seconds per point, and at a course like Seneca Park, it should be less than 3 seconds per point.

Regional Results

Wow!  Congratulations to the four Section V runners that have qualified for Nationals - either Nike Cross Nationals in Oregon, or Footlocker Nationals in San Diego.  Katie Lembo qualified for the latter, with an excellent run at Van Cortland Park in the Bronx, to place third.  Joining us at Bowdoin Park for the Nike Regional meet were Siobhan Quinn and Kennedy Jensen, who grabbed the last two spots in the girls race, and Mickey Burke, who was second in the boys race, behind the new course record-holder, Nick Ryan of F-M.  Ryan was away from the field immediately, holding about a 10-second lead, just a half-mile into the race!

Our team fared well at the race, with most of our girls starting off the day in the Open race, which featured  the combined NY and Northeast regions.  Running without Val, who was waiting for the Championship race and Amanda, who was vacationing in California, the girls still managed 7th of the 21 teams, thanks to a nice team race, including Ashlynn's best team finish (3rd).

The boys had to go without Zach's services, as his hip would not allow him to race, and he was relegated to the spectator role.  And the boys stepped up, turning a very close battle for third place at the halfway point into a comfortable margin at the finish.  Justin and John had big negative splits (28 and 15 seconds, respectively) to finish 9th and 15th overall, while Kevin ran even splits to grab 32nd.

We had to wait a couple more hours for Val's race, as the conditions hardened, with the sun disappearing and the wind picking up a bit.  Val started a little easier than last week, and was placed in the low 20s early in the race.  By the halfway point she had moved her way up to 12th place and was within 10 seconds of the fifth spot.  She couldn't close the gap any further, but wound up almost breaking 19 minutes, and taking 19th place to pick up a new t-shirt at the awards ceremony.

Overall, a very nice trip to wind up a fun and exciting Cross Country season!

Complete Nike Regional results are available here.  And Footlocker results are available here.

NXN New York Regionals

Some of the XC diehards will be heading down to Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls for the Nike Cross Nationals Regional qualifier for New York.  Information about the meet is available on the NXN NY web page.

The schedule is as follows:

9:00 AM Girls Open Race NY/NE Combined [Most of our girls]
9:30 AM Boys Open Race NE
10:00 AM Boys Open Race NY [All of our boys]
10:35 AM Open Awards
10:40 AM USATF Bantam Coed 3k
10:55 AM USATF Midget Coed 3k
11:15 AM USATF Youth Coed 4k
11:20 AM Opening Ceremonies- Anthem
11:40 AM Girls NE Championship Race 
12:15 PM Boys NE Championship Race
1:00  PM  Girls NY Championship Race [Val's race]
1:35  PM Boys NY Championship Race
2:10  PM Championship Awards and Nationals Registration
The Girls Championship race is loaded!  Based on Tully Speed Ratings, 37 of the top 39 girls in New York State will be competing in this race.  Of course the outstanding teams entered include Manlius XC (from Fayetteville-Manlius, ranked #1 in the nation), Kinetic Running Club (from Saratoga, ranked #11 last week, but should move up this week), AHN-XC Club (from Acadamy of the Holy Names, ranked #10 last week), teams from the watch list: Burnt Hills, East Aurora, Pearl River, R-H (Comets TC) and Suffern, and other Section V teams: HF-L, Hilton and Thomas (Titan Ridge Runners).

Val Marches On...

Val had a solid performance at the NY Federation Championships on Saturday, earning a 14th place finish in  19:03, which is apparently the 12th best Section V time on the course!

A larger portion of the team returns to the same course on Saturday, for the Nike Cross National qualifier for New York (the Northeast region also holds their qualifier on the same course).

The start lists for the NY Championship races on Saturday are available at Milesplit.  For the girls, only 2 of the top 39 speed-ratings are not attending: Katie Lembo (going to Foot Locker) and Megan Reilly of Warwick (presumably headed to Van Cortland Park as well).

Feds

The New York State Federation Cross Country Championship meet is scheduled for this Saturday at Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls, NY.  This meet brings together the top teams and individuals from the NYS Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA, not all of which are public schools), the Public School Athetic League (PSAL) from New York City, the Catholic High School Athletic Association (CHSAA) and the Assoication of Independent Schools (AIS), which is made up of various private schools from around the state.

The girls race starts at 12:15pm, followed by the boys race at 1pm.

The teams have been announced for both the boys and the girls.  There are some notable teams missing: Fayetteville-Manlius is sitting out, both their state champion girls, and their runner-up (by a single point) girls. The East Aurora girls, second in Class B and fourth in the merge are staying home, while the boys, also second in Class B, but eighth in the merge, are making the trip.  Rush-Henrietta is the opposite: their girls (third in Class A, fifth in the merge) are going, but the boys (seventh in the merge) are not.  All of the other teams from the top 12 in the girls merge are attending, so it should be a good race.  For the boys, the only other team from the top 13 that is not participating are the Class B champs from Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons.

As to individuals, the top 8 boys from the State Meet are sitting this one out, to prepare for either the Nike or Foot Locker regional meets the following weekend.  The girls seem a little "tougher" than the boys, with four of the top five girls from the state meet entered in Feds.

Section V representatives include the girls team from Penfield, in addition to R-H, and the boys team from Mendon.  The only individual boy is Gabe Rodriguez, coming off his win in Class D at States.  Individual girls include Val, Siobhan Quinn from R-H, and Karli O'Neill from Churchville-Chili.

TullyRunners has a nice preview of the races.  The top 16 girls teams are projected to be from the NYSPHSAA!  The boys race is slightly different, with three non-NYSPHSAA teams expected to crack the top 13.

Finally, the course map is available here.

Congratulations Val!

Val had a nice group of teammates make the trip over to Elma Meadows, helping to propel her to an 11th place finish! After the two mile mark, Val moved from 19th to 12th going up the long, gradual hill.  The Section V girls took 6 of the top 15 spots!  All six were faster than the winners of any other races.

Complete results are available at Leone Timing.

Also, congratulations to Brenna Lyons for her 43rd place finish!  And the Addison Boys, picked to finish 10th in the Class C race, stepped up their game and placed 6th, despite having no runners cross the line until 66th place!

One Last Thing

Results should show up sometime tomorrow at Leone Timing; however, don't hold your breath - NYSPHSAA, while allowing "live" track results to be posted to the web, have been notoriously closed about allowing XC results to appear anywhere before the awards ceremony.  I'll try to post some Section V results here via my phone.

More State Meet Info

Two web sites  have some good information regarding the races tomorrow:

TullyRunners has their usual State Meet predictions, based largely on the speed ratings.  And NY Milesplit has previews of all of the Boys and Girls races.

Section V could see some strong performances.  For the Boys, Section V seems to be stronger on the team side in Classes A and B, with R-H and Mendon looking solid while only Mickey Burke ranks in the top 12 in either race.  On the other hand, Classes C and D both have potential individual champs representing Section V in Jeff Antolos and Gabe Rodriguez, while the teams are expected to finish farther down the results list.

The highlight of the Section V Girls representatives seem to be the Class A individuals, with 4 of the top 14 speed ratings belonging to our area.  Last year the Sectional Team finished third, just five points behind Section 2.  There is a very good chance of improving that this year, especially since it appears Section 3 will not repeat their 1-2-3-4-6-7-12-13 performance of last year (the incredibly strong F-M top 7, plus Laura Leff).  The R-H girls team should be in a tight battle for 3rd, behind two of the top teams in the country (F-M and Saratoga).  Expect the HF-L girls to outperform their seventh-place projection in Class B.

States!

The NY State XC Championship meet is scheduled for Saturday.  Here is the race schedule:

• 9:00 - Class B Girls
• 9:30 - Class C Girls
• 10:00 - Class D Girls
• 10:30 - Class A Girls
• 11:00 - Class B Boys
• 11:30 - Class C Boys
• 12:00 - Class D Boys
• 12:30 - Class A Boys

The meet will be held at Elma Meadows golf course, outside of Buffalo, just a five-mile bike ride from the house I grew up in (I made that trip many times back when $100 could buy a season pass for juniors).  In addition to playing dozens of rounds of golf each summer, I had the opportunity to compete on the course twice at our Sectional meet in high school.  And I caught most of the Sectional and State meet races there from 1985-2005.  It remains one of my favorite XC courses of all time.

Section6Runs has a link to important information about the meet.  Probably the most interesting items are the three videos that show mile 1, mile 2 and mile 3 of the course.  They can't properly convey the full experience of the elevations changes, but they do a very nice job of showing the course.  You don't have to worry about getting hit by stray golf balls during the race - the golf course will be closed for the meet!

Section V XC Championship Review

OK, how did the computer fare in projecting results at the Section V XC Championship meet?  Complete results are available at Yen Timing (for now, easily available on the right-hand side of the home page, later you will have to dig into archived results), or if you like to see the Tully speed ratings, you can head on over to TullyRunners.

The biggest news of Sectional weekend across the state, is the meets that weren't.  Due to Frankenstorm Sandy, Sections 1, 9 and 11 all had to postpone their meets - Sections 1 and 9 are competing today, Section 11 is racing tomorrow.  Interestingly, the near end of Long Island (Section 8 - Nassau County) is not going to have a Sectional meet, and instead will use their merged results from the County Championship meet.

The best way to look at our own results is in the merge, where both the Boys and Girls managed to snag 10th place out of all of Section V.  This was a pleasant surprise for the Boys who, as predicted, finished 9th in Class A.  The merged results moved us ahead of Athena and Victor, who we actually beat in dual meet scoring, 26-29 and 28-29, respectively.  So, the Class A race had the "perfect storm" of distribution that allowed them to sneak ahead of us.  Props to the Addison squad - the Class C champs managed to place 17th in the merged results.

Victor turned the table on us in the Girls merged results, beating us by one point, even though we also beat them 27-28 in dual meet scoring.  HF-L and Mendon were the teams from Class B that moved us down from 7th in the Class A race.

So, back to the predictions...

Boys

Class A
As expected, R-H took home the title (for the fourth? year in a row).  Fairport did not match expectations, so Thomas, with a very fine effort, grabbed second and Irondequoit was third.  The top six finishers went to plan with the exception of Keith Pease edging Tyler Ranke for third.  The surprise was the performance of  McQuaid's Nick Ciolkowski, whose blazing finish grabbed the last state meet slot from Sasha.

Class B
The computer correctly called Mendon in this one, but Mendon only scored 35, rather than the 38 predicted!  In all, the computer got the top 5 correct, and didn't know about Aquinas, who finished ahead of Batavia for sixth.

I correctly overrode the computer is calling the win by Jack Wesley, but JT Pagnelli surprised us both by moving ahead of Will Ronchetti for second.  But the last two spots were claimed by Northrup and Douglas, not Mullen and Demmer.

Class C
So, I did not override the computer to pick Addison, but they took 26 points off the predicted score to earn the mild upset over Way-Co by 14 points.  Notre Dame-Batavia didn't get killed by their fifth man and moved up to 3rd, preventing us from getting the rest of the top five perfect.

Jeff Antolos was predicted to win by a minute, and he made it a minute-and-a-half instead, almost claiming the fastest time of the day [I did mention to Mickey Burke, just after the two-mile mark, that he was behind Antolos, in case he needed some motivation in that part of the race].  A frosh from Williamson spoiled the chance for a perfect record on selecting the individuals in this race.  I imagine we will see him at the top of the results page at Sectionals in a year or two.

Class D
Cal-Mum, even with a fifth man running over 20 minutes, ended up the surprise winner in this one, besting four ranked teams (Campbell-Savona finished four points behind).  For the individuals, the computer was 4 of 5 on the individuals.

Girls

Class A
R-H got the win, as called, over Penfield and Canandaigua, but the scores were 61-83-100, not within the eight or so points expected.  Irondequoit jumped over Schroeder and Thomas for fifth.

Eileen O'Hara finished fourth to be the only girl not called by the computer to make the team.

Class B
The team race went as expected with HF-L effectively winning a dual meet over Mendon.  Mercy edged Brighton by four for fourth.

And the computer was 5-for-5 on predicting the individuals.

Class C
Byron-Bergen had a huge race, but fell one point short of upsetting Wayland-Cohocton.  With Notre Dame only up in C for the Boys, not the Girls, we went 4-for-5 in picking individuals, with a fine race by Heather Kramberg of Williamson getting the last spot by one second.

Class D
As mentioned Notre Dame stayed down in D for the girls and was able to beat Oakfield-Alabama by seven points.  The dearth of information available in this class meant only two of the five individuals predicted made it to States.

Congratulations to all of the Section V teams and individuals that will represent our area at Elma Meadows this weekend!  And there was a lot of very fine running in all of the races in adverse conditions, after such a mild season.

Section V XC Championships - Boys Preview

As with the girls, time was limited for detailed analysis outside of Class A, but that won't stop me from making some predictions!  The classes are presented below in the order they will be racing.

Class C
This is a tough class to rate because there are not many runners in the Tully database, so extra research was required.  It looks like Way-Co is a slight favorite over Addison, with Livonia and East Rochester also in contention.  I'm missing a few schools, but the scores could be something like this:

1. Wayland-Cohocton 127 
2. Addison 132 
3. Livonia 172 
4. East Rochester 189 
5. Williamson 204 
6. Dansville 210 
7. Marcus Whitman 214 
8. Notre Dame-Batavia 219 
9. Midlakes 244 
10. Odyssey School 245 
11. Byron-Bergen 250 
12. Hornell 251 
13. Waterloo 255 
14. Palmyra-Macedon 282 
15. Holley 284 
16. Mynderse Acad 343 
17. Le Roy 367 
18. North Rose-Wolcott 513 

The individual race will be ALL Jeff Antolos of Notre Dame-Batavia.  He is capable of winning by a minute.Mitchell Priebe (Midlakes), Jacob Hanss (ER), David Smith (Holley) and Cody Martini (Pal-Mac) are most likely to round out the top five.  There are probably another seven kids with a decent shot of breaking onto the state meet team.

Class D

This could be an exciting team race.  Campbell-Savona (rankings: 14, 12) is a slight favorite, but within striking distance are three other teams: Honeoye (17, 17), Wheatland-Chili (21, 18) and Red Creek (18, 20).

Gabe Rodriguez of Geneseo is the prohibitive favorite - he should win by over a minute.  Cal-Mum's Everett Geiger and Jon Pearl of Campbell-Savona should have a nice battle for second.  The other favorites for making the trip to Elma Meadows next week include: Alex Hogue (Wheatland-Chili), Aamir Zain (HAC), and Mitch Cicero and Jon Borek (both of Perry).  Runners from Cal-Mum, Avon and Kendall are right behind.

Class B

Pittsford Mendon (#2 in both polls) is certainly the team to beat.  They had an excellent run last week for the surprise victory at the Monroe County Championships.  Another performance like that will earn a victory.  But never count HF-L (#12 in both) out.  Even though they are ranked third among Class B schools in Section V, they sat out Counties are always ready to race at Sectionals.  Brighton (6, 9) should be in the picture as well, while Sutherland (22, 18) looks like fourth, although Arcadia has been coming on strong.  The computer has this to say about the Monroe County teams:

1. Mendon
2. Honeoye Falls Lima
3. Brighton
4. Sutherland
5. Arcadia
6. Batavia
7. East Irondequoit

I don't think other teams can break up the top five.

Top individuals (there is sure to be a dogfight for the state meet spots):

1. Ronchetti, Will Brighton 16:01
2. Wesley, Jack Mendon 16:03
3. VanVleck, Matt Mendon 16:12
4. Phelan, Will Sutherland 16:14
5. Paganelli, JT Honeoye Falls Lima 16:21
6. Green, Connor Mendon 16:28
7. Mullen, Andrew Brighton 16:28
8. Demmer, Ty Batavia 16:28
9. Lawlor, John Honeoye Falls Lima 16:31
10. Northrup, Brian Arcadia 16:31
11. Cove, Zach Sutherland 16:33
12. Douglas, Langton Honeoye Falls Lima 16:36
13. Doyle, Nathan Mendon 16:46
14. Young, Robert Mendon 16:48
15. Azzara, David Mendon 16:54
16. Leo, Patrick Honeoye Falls Lima 16:54
17. Geraci, Matt Honeoye Falls Lima 16:57
18. Schmitt, Drew Brighton 16:59
19. Simpson, Zachary Brighton 16:59
20. Matthews, Cole Honeoye Falls Lima 17:01

I like Jack Wesley for the win and Will Ronchetti for second, in a repeat of last week's order.

Class A

This should be an incredible team race.  There are no fewer than six ranked teams competing here, making it the best match-up in the state (Section 3 is next with four teams, but three will be fighting for second behind F-M).  R-H (#7 in both polls) gets the deserved respect as the pre-race favorite, and last week showed they may have lessened their fifth man weakness.  Three other teams have very legitimate title shots: Fairport (14, 16), Irondequoit (15, 17) and Thomas (17, 15).  The other ranked teams are Hilton (21, 24) and McQuaid (19, HM).  The computer (which does not have up-to-date McQuaid information) says:

1. Rush Henrietta 73
2. Fairport 77
3. Thomas 87
4. Irondequoit 91
5. Hilton 147
6. Victor 170
7. McQuaid 177
8. Athena 188
9. Schroeder 214
10. Penfield 267
11. Canandaigua 307
12. Spencerport 380
13. Churchville Chili 388
14. Brockport 413
15. Gates Chili 429

The top individuals:

1. Burke, Mickey Rush Henrietta 15:35
2. Root, Brennan Rush Henrietta 15:43
3. Ranke, Tyler Hilton 15:52
4. Pease, Keith Athena 15:56
5. Dyrland, Josh Irondequoit 15:56
6. Scott, Jack Fairport 16:04
7. Schantz, Mike Rush Henrietta 16:11
8. Yost, Nathan Victor 16:13
9. Mertens, George Victor 16:17
10. Johnson, Keith Thomas 16:18
11. Andrievsky, Sasha Thomas 16:20
12. White, Jimmy Fairport 16:20
13. Shanahan, Luke Victor 16:21
14. Penner, Andy Fairport 16:26
15. Muzdakis, Zachary Irondequoit 16:29
16. Neamtu, Nick Thomas 16:30
17. Goldstein, Josh Thomas 16:32
18. Ciolkowski, Nick McQuaid 16:32
19. Wilczewski, James Irondequoit 16:33
20. Paige, Aaron Irondequoit 16:34
21. Wolf, Josh Fairport 16:35
22. Pirnie, Ross Hilton 16:35
23. Sullivan, Michael McQuaid 16:37
24. Hatta, Olivier Fairport 16:38
25. Shenal, Patrick Rush Henrietta 16:40
26. Burgin, Will Schroeder 16:40
27. Stuver, A.J. McQuaid 16:41
28. Razavi, Mike Fairport 16:42
29. Kozlowski, Mike Penfield 16:43
30. Mizma, Mitch Hilton 16:43
31. Sargeant, Seamus Fairport 16:44
32. Looby, John Irondequoit 16:49
33. Whitman, Ben Thomas 16:49
34. Witt, Kevin Thomas 16:49
35. Kaukeinen, Britt Irondequoit 16:52
36. Reed, Justin Schroeder 16:52
37. Koenig, Ethan Athena 16:52
38. Larkin, Mike Rush Henrietta 16:54
39. Feola, Nolan Irondequoit 16:55
40. Lauria, Mike Athena 16:56

Well, that's all for tonight!  This will be a Sectional meet well worth attending!

Section V XC Championships - Girls Preview

OK, so work has severely limited my time to look closely at more than Class A, but I have collected some additional information that I have compiled below.  Let's go by Class, in the order of the races...

Class C
I have a niece running in this race, so I admit a bias :-).  On the team side, both of the state rankings call this a two-school race between Wayland-Cohocton and Livonia.  The NYS Sportswriters ranking has them 20th and 24th, respectively, while NY Milesplit ranks them 12th and 14th.  Despite the rankings, I think that Livonia comes in as the slight favorite.  Way-Co's 1-2 punch is incredible, but their 1-5 gap was 3:44 at their league championships, and they lost to Livonia, 82-90 in raw score (there was no official team scoring).

For individuals, Marcus-Whitman's Audrey Button may be able to split the Way-Co pair, Meghan Curtin and Amanda Booth, but Addison's Brenna Lyons and Anna Warner from Batavia-Notre Date should not be far behind.  If Way-Co wins the team title, a couple more individual spots would open up, with the leading contenders being Laurie Call (Notre Dame), Alex Shipman (Livonia), Erica Barbay (Mynderse), Evelyn Pinneo (Penn Yan) and Lindsay Chamberlain (Attica), in a very tight group.

Class D
The polls show Batavia-Notre Dame in Class D, but I'm fairly certain they have been moved up to Class C.  That leaves Oakfield-Alabama as the clear favorite in this race - they are ranked 3rd and 6th in NYSSWA and Milesplit; however, there are several teams within striking distance: Red Creek (9th in both), Geneseo (10th and 11th), and perhaps even Pembroke (22nd and 19th).

The individual race has a clear favorite in Shealyn Doody of Red Jacket.  Anna Phillips (Avon) and Samantha VanGee (Marion) are safe bets to join the state meet team, but the last two spots have some competition - leading contenders are Anna Miskell (Geneseo), Raelynn Moskal (Alexander), and Megan Bouton (Campbell-Savona).

Class B
HF-L are the solid favorites to win here.  They rested their top seven again at the County Meet to make sure they would be ready for this weekend.  Mendon did not seem to have a top performance in placing 4th last weekend, perhaps to save their best for Sectionals.  In addition to HF-L (6th and 12th) and Mendon (16th in both), Sutherland also appears in both polls, at 22nd.  I don't have time to do full team scoring, as I would have to add the following non-Monroe County league teams: Mercy, Wayne, Geneva, Aquinas, Newark, and perhaps some of the eligible city schools (SOTA, Monroe, Charlotte, Freddie Thomas and Marshall), although last year, only SOTA had any participants (they were Class A).  But here is the predicted order of finish:

1. HF-L
2. Mendon
3. Sutherland
4. Brighton
5. Mercy
6. Eastridge
7. Wayne
8. Batavia
9. Geneva
10. Aquinas
11. Arcadia
12. Newark
13. SOTA

And the leading individuals look like this:

1	Cole, Hannah		Honeoye Falls Lima	18:33
2	Douglas, Riley		Honeoye Falls Lima	18:47
3	Visca, Mary		Sutherland	18:55
4	Mevorach, Martha		Honeoye Falls Lima	18:59
5	Yancey, Colleen		Mendon	19:19
6	Pieper, Maddy		Mendon	19:44
7	Campbell, Alexa		Brighton	19:58
8	Pieper, Lilly		Mendon	19:59
9	Novak, Allie		Mendon	20:00
10	Wojnowski, Veronica		East Irondequoit	20:08

Michelle Collins of Geneva is the non-Monroe County runner with the best shot at cracking the top 10.

Class A
I'm not expecting East or Wilson to field teams in this race, so the team scoring should only involve Monroe County league schools.  Of course we expect a tight three-team battle for this one.  R-H pulled off a tight 97-102-112 win over Penfield and Canandaigua last week, with Siobhan Quinn nearly ten spots farther back that she could have been.  But Canandaigua's 5th girl scored 19 points more than expected, and Penfield's usual number four missed expectations by 16 points.  So, all three teams have an opportunity for improvement.  Once again, I have to give R-H the edge, after seeing them knock off Penfield in the dual meet, and pull off the win last week.  The computer is saying otherwise:

1. Penfield 76
2. Rush Henrietta 81
3. Canandaigua 84
4. Hilton 137
5. Thomas 143
6. Schroeder 152
7. Irondequoit 177
8. Fairport 184
9. Victor 210
10. Churchville Chili 271
11. Athena 320
12. Brockport 342
13. Gates Chili 381
14. Spencerport 401

This race is likely to be the toughest race in the state in which to qualify as an individual.  The leaders look like this:

1. Lembo, Katie Penfield 17:35
2. Jensen, Kennedy Canandaigua 17:51
3. Tuttle, Georgia Irondequoit 17:56
4. Palermo, Val Schroeder 18:20
5. O'Neill, Karli Churchville Chili 18:30
6. O'Hara, Eileen Thomas 18:37
7. Tate, Tiffany Irondequoit 18:39
8. Quinn, Siobhan Rush Henrietta 18:42
9. Paratore, Amanda Schroeder 18:45
10. Albrecht, Autumn Brockport 19:01

The Boys preview will have to wait until tonight...

Section V XC Championships - Part One

Since I've been doing some scrambling the last few days, I haven't had time to post, so I'll have to do all three Sectional postings sometime today.  This first posting covers the basic information about tomorrow's meet at Genesee Community College.

The schedule is posted here, but I can't see it because it is stored in Google Docs.  The schedule is supposed to be the same as last year (according to this page), but I think it really is as follows (different from last year):

• 10:30 Girls Class CC/C Race
• 11:00 Girls Class DD/D Race
• 11:30 Boys Class CC/C Race
• 12:00 Boys Class DD/D Race
• 1:30 Girls Class B Race
• 2:00 Girls Class A Race
• 2:30 Boys Class B Race
• 3:00 Boys Class A Race

Directions to the meet site from Schroeder are below (click on "View Larger Map" for more details):

View Larger Map

County Meet Review

Well some things went per plan and some things didn't - both for the team and for the league.

The top of the Boys scoresheet did not play to form, as Mendon pulled off a surprising win, aided by R-H and HF-L both sitting key competitors, and Fairport and Irondequoit running well off their capabilities (with the exception of Josh Dyrland, who clearly went after the win).  But Mendon ran very well to earn the title, and beat a solid Thomas team, and demonstrating that in our competitive league, even backing off a little can move you down the results list quite easily.  It will be interesting to see how the three different strategies work out next weekend in the Class A and Class B races at Sectionals.

Overall, the Boys All-County team was generally as expected - 5 favorites sat out, and only 4 others missed the team.  The 5 favorites were replaced by 5 of the next 7 runners on the list.  The Girls All-County team also played to form: 3 girls sat out and just 4 missed the list.  The next 6 girls on the prediction list filled all but one of those slots.

The Girls team results were much closer to the predicted results than the Boys, as the computer and I collaborated to correctly call the top 9 teams, when considering the assumption that HF-L would sit their top runners.  But R-H did not win easily, with Siobhan clearly saving something for next week and giving up almost 10 points, and their pack starting out back in the field a bit, they came on strong to pull of the win.  There are still three teams with a legitimate shot to win the Class A title this weekend.

Our boys finished 12th as predicted, but the door was open to pick up additional places.  The girls beat the predicted 8th place finish by one, but that was due to the HF-L scratches.  Thomas was right there to be had!

Coming later this week - Sectional Previews...

Oops

Forgot to post the leading contenders for first-team All-County honors (note the times are totally a wild and conservative guess since this is the first time for this course as the County Meet course):

1	Lembo, Katie	Penfield	18:15
2	Tuttle, Georgia	Irondequoit	18:25
3	Jensen, Kennedy	Canandaigua	18:27
4	Palermo, Val	Schroeder	19:01
5	O'Neill, Karli	Churchville Chili	19:06
6	Quinn, Siobhan	Rush Henrietta	19:08
7	Tate, Tiffany	Irondequoit	19:11
8	Cole, Hannah	Honeoye Falls Lima	19:21
9	O'Hara, Eileen	Thomas	19:26
10	Paratore, Amanda	Schroeder	19:29
11	Douglas, Riley	Honeoye Falls Lima	19:34
12	Visca, Mary	Sutherland	19:41
13	Albrecht, Autumn	Brockport	19:44
14	Mevorach, Martha	Honeoye Falls Lima	19:48
15	Sedita, Megan	Penfield	19:52
16	Cooper, Alex	Rush Henrietta	19:52
17	MacDonald, Alana	Rush Henrietta	19:56
18	D'Amore, Kendall	Canandaigua	19:56
19	Yancey, Colleen	Mendon	20:01
20	Keene, Haley	Hilton	20:02
21	D'Amore, Lauren	Canandaigua	20:07
22	Dehm, Olivia	Victor	20:07
23	Garbinski, Dana	Canandaigua	20:10
24	Heyer, Lindsay	Penfield	20:12
25	Camillaci, Zoe	Hilton	20:14
26	Schnaufer, Ilana	Penfield	20:22
27	Pieper, Maddy	Mendon	20:30
28	Kunigan, Mary	Hilton	20:30
29	Cok, Sarah	Penfield	20:32
30	Adams, Laura	Thomas	20:32
31	Jones, Emma	Rush Henrietta	20:33
32	Miller, Hayley	Canandaigua	20:34
33	Watson, Sammy	Rush Henrietta	20:36
34	Wagner, Clara	Irondequoit	20:36

Monroe County Preview - Girls

So, in the better late than never category, here are the computer predictions for the Girls Varsity race tomorrow.  Again I'll just spit out the numbers, blindly, before making some comments.

Penfield	95
Canandaigua	97
Rush Henrietta	103
Honeoye Falls Lima	128
Mendon	166
Hilton	186
Thomas	205
Schroeder	206
Fairport	234
Irondequoit	246
Victor	281
Sutherland	293
Churchville Chili	400
Brighton	407
Batavia	448
East Irondequoit	450
Athena	466
Brockport	511
Gates Chili	556
Spencerport	613
Odyssey	628
Arcadia	656
East Rochester	736
Olympia	inc

As with the boys, it looks like the R-H selective racing has hidden the most likely outcome, but it highlights just how close the top of this race should be.  It will be interesting to see how the top three teams approach this race, given the fact that they go head-to-head again next weekend, with a trip to the state meet on the line.  Will they try to make a statement at the County Meet, and perhaps gain some momentum and a psychological edge over the other teams, or will they play down the importance of this meet and leave it all for next weekend.

I give the slight edge to R-H.  Their youngest girls held up well on the hills of Mendon East to secure the dual meet win over Penfield in the last week of the season, and younger girls tend to be more negatively impacted by that kind of course.  HF-L may abdicate the 4th place spot, in favor of saving it for Sectionals, which may make for an interesting battle for the next spots, with Mendon only slightly ahead of Hilton, who is only slightly ahead of both Webster schools.  Fairport comes in very close together and may place high enough to challenge as well.

Monroe County Champs - Boys Preview

Well, the computer has crunched the numbers and spit out a few surprises.  I'll just slap in the output, and then make some comments.

Boys Varsity	Total
Fairport	84
Rush Henrietta	108
Thomas	123
Irondequoit	137
Mendon	148
Brighton	178
Victor	207
Honeoye Falls Lima	211
Hilton	219
Athena	260
Sutherland	266
Schroeder	301
Arcadia	318
Penfield	373
Canandaigua	423
Batavia	517
Spencerport	561
Churchville Chili	567
Olympia	602
East Rochester	615
Gates Chili	621
Brockport	627
Odyssey	673
East Irondequoit	705

The computer thinks that Rush-Henrietta will score too many points with their 4th and, especially, 5th men to win, but last year, R-H scored 30 when the computer predicted 54, so I still think they are the team to beat. Irondequoit also had a big meet at Counties last year, so they are in contention with Fairport.  Thomas hasn't raced much, so we'll see if they also have a surprise for the competition this weekend.  HF-L tends to sit their varsity, so I think Mendon is a good bet for 5th, or higher if anyone falters.

Although our boys beat both Athena and Sutherland head-to-head, the computer gives them each a sizable advantage in this invitational scoring.  And Arcadia has been improving rapidly, and sits right behind us.

Here are the computer's picks for first-team all-county favorites:

Burke, Mickey	Rush Henrietta
Root, Brennan	Rush Henrietta
Scott, Jack	Fairport
Ronchetti, Will	Brighton
Pease, Keith	Athena
Dyrland, Josh	Irondequoit
Ranke, Tyler	Hilton
Phelan, Will	Sutherland
Mertens, George	Victor
Yost, Nathan	Victor
Wesley, Jack	Mendon
Shanahan, Luke	Victor
Schantz, Mike	Rush Henrietta
White, Jimmy	Fairport
Johnson, Keith	Thomas
VanVleck, Matt	Mendon
Mullen, Andrew	Brighton
Andrievsky, Sasha	Thomas
Paganelli, JT	Honeoye Falls Lima
Penner, Andy	Fairport
Goldstein, Josh	Thomas
Wolf, Josh	Fairport
Cove, Zach	Sutherland
Green, Connor	Mendon
Hatta, Olivier	Fairport
Northrup, Brian	Arcadia
Neamtu, Nick	Thomas
Demmer, Ty	Batavia
Paige, Aaron	Irondequoit
Muzdakis, Zachary	Irondequoit
Lawlor, John	Honeoye Falls Lima
Moran, Mitch	Penfield
Pirnie, Ross	Hilton
Wilczewski, James	Irondequoit

Monroe County Championships

Just four days until the final race of the season for most Cross Country athletes in Monroe County, Section V and across New York State.  I still have a fair amount of work to do, to prepare my annual predictions, but the work of the athletes is essentially over.  While several sections around the state allow ten runners at Sectionals, only seven are allowed here.  So, while we have seen over 1000 athletes compete in Monroe County XC this fall, no more than 336 will continue on to Sectionals.

The new course at Parma Park should provide for some fast times.  Our visit there yesterday confirmed that the course is very flat and should be in excellent shape on Saturday.  Speaking of Saturday, here is the schedule of events:

• 11:15 Modified Boys
• 11:45 Modified Girls
• 1:00 JV Boys
• 1:30 JV Girls
• 2:00 Varsity Boys
• 2:30 Varsity Girls [we have finish card duty for this race - we'll be looking for a couple of volunteers]
• 3:00 Varsity “B” Boys
• 3:30 Varsity “B” Girls
• 4:15 Awards in shelter past finish line

Please note that the northern lot, of off Route 18 is reserved for buses, since the runners cross that driveway twice during the race.  Loyal readers of this blog will be rewarded with this special insider's tip: enter at the south entrance on Route 259, and follow the road all the way through two smaller parking lots to the large parking lot in back.  It is right behind the starting line, and was almost completely empty, both at last year's County meet, and at this year's Parma Invitational.  I hate to give away my secrets, but anything for those that read this far!

Directions from Schroeder (you can stay on 104 all the way to Rt 259, but I prefer to avoid the Saturday mall traffic...):

 
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Parma Park

Originally, today was the day we were scheduled to visit Parma Park, and view the new Monroe County XC Championship course.  This has been rescheduled for Monday, to accommodate some of our many musically-inclined team members.

Instead, we can at least get a bit of a preview of the course, in armchair mode.  First, here is the link to the current course map.  As you can see, the "two loop" format of the standard Parma Park course has been replaced by a single, long loop, that is somewhat "out-and-back" in nature, but the "out" and "back" are mostly separated by some space.  The finish line remains in the same location, but the starting line has been relocated to give a very long straightaway to open the race.

I was able to jog the course after the Parma Invitational in September, and here are some of my recollections:

• The standard course is relatively flat, with three "mini hills" on each of the two loops; the County course hits similar mini hills, but just once each, so it is even flatter.
• The early (and late) part of the course is grass, but not manicured; there is some roughness to the terrain.
• There are many long straightaways on the course, but several sections contain the quick twists and turns of the old course.  It is important not to get lulled into a lack of focus when making the transition.
• The mini hills follow the same downhill-bridge-uphill pattern of the old course.
• The course is nice for some spectators - the mile mark and two-mile mark are just a stone's throw apart; however, it is nasty for the spectator (or coach) that likes to catch the race in six or seven locations.  It's tough enough that the course is "stretched out", but there are also too many barriers that prevent running parallel to the course.
• The course is great for cross country runners: varied terrain, generally flat and fast, and almost no pavement (perhaps just the two driveway crossings?).

League Meet Finale

Tomorrow we wrap up the Monroe County League schedule, and what a finale we have!  This will be a rare  occasion where four teams that are ranked in Class A in New York State get together for joint dual meets.  The girls match-up involves Rush-Henrietta (#3), Penfield (#4), Hilton (#15) and Schroeder (#25), plus Brockport.  This should be a big showdown between R-H and Penfield, with the Division title on the line.  R-H made the long journey to New York City for the Manhattan Invitational, where they put on a very strong showing.  Can they come back and run well three days later?  The computer scores the meet 26-29, in favor of Penfield, but R-H has some upside possibility with their 2-3 runners just behind Penfield's second.  The meet could easily come down to the fifth runners.

Our head-to-head scoring with Hilton also looks to be very tight - and could be a meet that is decided by the fifth runners.

The boys races aren't as tight, but feature the strong teams from R-H and Hilton, and us chasing.

Saturday's Meet

We are heading to the Seneca Invitational at Seneca Park this weekend.  Complete details are available here, but here is some quick info about race times:

• 11:00am 5k Open Race (Unlimited Participants)
• 12:00pm 2-mile Girls Modified Race (unlimited #’s)
• 12:30pm 2-mile Boys Modified Race (unlimited #’s)
• 1:00pm 5k Girls Varsity B Race (unlimited #’s)
• 1:30pm 5k Boys Varsity B Race (unlimited #’s)
• 2:00pm 5k Girls Varsity A Race (7 runners per team)
• 2:30pm 5k Boys Varsity A Race (7 runners per team)

Teams that may be in attendance include:

• Pittsford Sutherland - 
• Penfield - 
• Fairport - 
• Webster Thomas - 
• W. Irondequoit
• Greece Athena
• Greece Olympia - 
• West Seneca West
• Spencerport - 
• Gates-Chili
• Churchville-Chili - 
• Brighton - 
• Aquinas - 
• Midlakes - 
• Campbell Savona
• Webster Schroeder
• Waterloo
• Bishop Kearney
• SOTA
• Wayne

Tuesday Results

The boys and girls each went 2-1 on Tuesday, with the Girls losing to Canandaigua, ranked #5 in the state among large schools, and the Boys losing to Brighton, ranked #7 in the state for Class B schools.

This brings the Boys record to 12-7, which means they've equaled the win total from last year with one week remaining.  Six of the seven losses have been to state-ranked teams, with the seventh to Victor, who is a strong dual meet team with their 1-2-3 punch that knocked us out.  On the other hand, we also managed to knock off two state-ranked teams: Sutherland and Arcadia!

Both teams were victorious over Greece Odyssey, who once again won "host of the year" honors by supplying the team with some fantastic cookies!  This was our last dual meet against Coach Joe Howlett, at least for a while, as he will be taking a hiatus with his third child on the way.  He has done a very nice job at a small school competing against very large schools, in arguably one of the top leagues in the country.

The Girls story is also good, now with a 15-4 record, which means they will come close to matching the record 18 wins the Girls posted last year.  The four losses have included currently ranked teams from Canandaigua, HF-L and Mendon, plus the 27-28 loss to Thomas, who has appeared in the rankings as well.  The win column does include a victory over Sutherland, who is ranked in Class B.  Next Tuesday is a big finale for the Girls, facing #3 Rush-Henrietta, #4 Penfield, and #19 Hilton, as well as Brockport.

Friday's Meet

Friday we make a short trip across town to Harris-Whalen Park, to compete in the Penfield-Irondequoit Invitational.  This is our only Friday afternoon meet.  The modified races go first, then our race schedule is:

• 4:45: Girls Varsity
• 5:15: Boys Varsity
• 5:44: Boys JV
• 5:46: Girls JV

No, the last two times are not a typo.  Because this meet usually runs behind, and darkness can start to become a factor, the JV Boys get just a two minute head-start over the Girls.

Our girls now have a State Ranking to defend.  The NYS Sportswriters ranking currently shows our girls in 25th.  You can see the ranking here.  Also, the folks at MileSplit have ranked the girls 23rd.  Their rankings appear here.  The girls' excellent performance at McQuaid earned these spots.  Now it's time to go to work for the second half of the season.

Speaking of MileSplit and Penfield, Katie Lembo "made the cover" this week, as the Harrier of the Week for New York State.  Congrats to Katie for her amazing run to victory at McQuaid and for the recognition!

Sorry!

Lots to talk about, but so little time, so just a bit now, and more later.

McQuaid went very well!  Our times were incredible, and the boys and girls each earned hardware.  The boys were third in a very competitive Large School unseeded race, and the girls won the unseeded portion of the Large School mixed race, led by top 10 finishes by Val and Amanda!

Complete McQuaid results are available here.  The boys demonstrated their incredible depth by taking 5th (behind only Mendon from Section V) in the Sophomore Boys race and 8th (behind only Fairport and Thomas, locally) in the Large School Varsity B race.

Some stats from McQuaid: 11 boys cracked the top 40 times by Schroeder runners and 17 guys broke 18 minutes.  Val and Amanda posted the top two Schroeder girls times and eight girls cracked the top 40.  The girls averaged 1:07 improvement over last year, and the boys improved an average of 1:55.

Finally, congratulations to all of the Schroeder parents that completed the Open race!  Our parents showed plenty of depth as well.

McQuaid Invitational

Once again, it is McQuaid week!  The 48th edition of Rochester's top Cross Country meet gets underway with the gun going off for first of twenty-six races at 9am sharp on Saturday.  While we don't run until later in the day (see our schedule below), I plan on arriving bright and early to see Zach's cousins race at 9:36, 10:09, and then 12:40 (which is also our first race).  Complete information is available at the McQuaid Invitational web site.

Many parents are planning on running the Open race this year.  It starts at 5:10pm, right after our final race of the day.  If you haven't entered yet, please do so here.  Entering by noon on Friday guarantees a shirt and has a fee of just $10, rather than the $20 fee at the meet.

The full schedule is available here, but I have listed our races below:
1:03pm Race #14 Sophomore Boys (and ninth graders)
2:26pm Race #18 Girls Varsity "B" (all girls not in the top six)
3:38pm Race #22 Boys Unseeded Varsity AAA-2 (our top seven that are not Sophomores)
3:58pm Race #23 Girls "Mixed" Varsity AAA (our top six girls)
4:45pm Race #25 Boys Varsity "B"  (our 11th and 12th graders, other than the top seven)
5:10pm Race #26 Alumni Open Race (all parents and any alumni that happen to be in town)

The Girls Varsity AAA race is "MIxed", meaning there are Seeded teams and Unseeded teams in the same race.  We have been classified as Unseeded and will be scored against the 10 teams in that category, while the 12 seeded teams will be scored separately.  We do plan to do a merge of the results and see how we stack up against the seeded teams.

8-0

It looks like yesterday's post did not take, so there will be a bonus entry today.

Monday's meet at Seneca Park was expected to be a tight battle between Schroeder and Sutherland, and it sure was!  The boys race went off first and our team got out well, with 13 boys passing the mile mark in 13 seconds between 5:32 and 5:45.  At this point, the runners disappear for a long loop, and when they came back into my view at about 2.25 miles, we were holding up well, with Will and Justin battling Sutherland's top runner, John well ahead of their third runner and Peter and Ben ahead of #4.  Sutherland's Will Phelan eventually unleashed a strong kick to overtake Arcadia's Brian Northrup and win by six seconds, but Justin and Will went 3-4, with the top Schroeder times on this course (we hadn't been here since 2008), John finished 7th, and Peter and Ben went 10-11, for a 23-33 victory over Sutherland, and a 24-32 win over a surprisingly strong Arcadia team.

Our JV Boys continued their strong performance, with the top seven finishing just 27 seconds apart, in times of 18:11 - 18:38 for this 5K course.  In all, 17 runners broke 19 minutes to make it onto the top 35 Webster Schroeder list.

The girls knew they were in for a tough battle, and perhaps went out a little too quickly, dominating the first mile, coming through in 6:06-6:30 for the top six.  Sutherland made their move in the back loop and with 1/2 mile to go, the race was very close.  Val and Amanda opened up a big lead to go 1-2 and destroy the school record on 20:14, by running 19:24 and 19:32.  Natalie couldn't quite hang on to Sutherland's second girl, but claimed 5th place, and a coveted newspaper spot!  Kelsie finished just behind their fourth runner and Julia stayed safely ahead of #6, allowing the girls to earn a 26-29 win.

While the NYS Sportswriters took away their love this week, the rankings on NY Milesplit tell a different story.  They took notice of our strong performance at East Aurora, and ranked our girls in Class A.  They also have Canandaigua, Rush-Henrietta ranked 3-4-5 heading into the showdown at McQuaid on Saturday.

Seneca Park

Today marks a very rare Monday XC league meet.  We travel to Seneca Park to face Arcadia, Batavia, Olympia and Sutherland.  On the girls side, Sutherland is ranked 22nd in Class B and Batavia is 24th, so they should give us some good competition.  Not surprisingly, we lost our spot in the rankings, on the heels of our 27-28 loss to Thomas.  What is surprising is that we were not replaced in the rankings by Thomas, but instead by Hilton who was placed at 25th in Class A, fourth in the Section behind R-H at #3, Penfield at #7 and Canandaigua at #8.  This is strange because Hilton was well behind R-H and Penfield at the GCC invitational, their top runner was out for that meet and their league meet last week, and our speed ratings from East Aurora put us comfortably ahead of Hilton's performance at GCC.

I think Thomas had earned that spot in the top 25.

On the boys side, Arcadia looks pretty decent this year, but it should come down to Schroeder vs. Sutherland for the win.  The computer has the match-up scored 28-28, with several finishes within two to four seconds, meaning it will be easy for the meet to go either way.

In case anyone needs last minute directions to the starting line:


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