Webster Distance Runners

Championship Season

2011-11-21T10:34:00.001-05:00

It has been a busy end of the year for Webster Schroeder XC! For the second year in a row, Schroeder was represented at both the State Meet and the Federation Meet.

At the NYSPHSAA (New York State Public High School Athletic Association) Cross Country Championships, held at Veron-Verona-Sherill High School, east of Syracuse, on November 12th, Amanda Paratore improved upon her 40th place finish in 2010, by placing 25th in the Class A race. This improvement was especially impressive, given the elimination of Class AA meant that the old Class AA was combined with a substantial portion of Class A, to create a much stronger field. That is the best performance by a Webster Schroeder girl since 2001, when Kristen Coon placed 3rd, when there was only one high school in Webster.

This past weekend, the Federation Meet was held at Bowdoin Park in Wappinger Falls, south of Poughkeepsie. Val Palermo, who was the fastest girl in the state that did not qualify for the State Meet, was granted a spot in the Federation Meet, based on her performances at Sectionals and earlier in the year. Amanda's performance at the State Meet secured her spot at the Federation Meet. Only 40 individuals are invited from public schools outside of New York City, so for two Schroeder girls to be invited is an excellent accomplishment.

Because of the way the start locations are drawn, Amanda and Val had to line up in different locations along the starting line. Fortunately, the locations were not too far apart: boxes 25 and 30, respectively. The race went out very fast, but the girls were able to locate each other through the crowded field by the end of 150 meters. At the 1/2 mile mark, they were placed in the high 60s, in a very crowded and steady stream of runners. They passed the mile in just about 6 minutes. Val was able to move ahead a little bit on the first part of the challenging uphill that dominates much of the first half of the second mile, but Amanda caught back up as they passed the top. When they came down the hill just before the 1.75 mile mark, they had moved almost to the top 50, with 40th place only ahead by several seconds. The third mile featured very evenly-matched girls trying to hold each other off as they came off the last part of the downhill, then up for the final loop around the large field. In the final stretch, Val was able to catch one last girl to move up to 48th place, and Amanda was able to fight off another girl to hang on to 50th. So, both girls were able to top AJ's 54th place finish from a year ago, which had been the first Schroeder appearance at the Feds, since the schools split.

The girls report that they are already looking forward to next year's Cross Country season!

And so am I!

States

2011-11-10T13:59:00.000-05:00

It looks like yesterday's post about Sectionals was deferred to today for some reason. Anyway, today I will briefly cover the NYSPHSAA XC Championship meet. This year's meet is being hosted by Vernon-Veronal-Sherill High School, almost in the shadow of the Turning Stone casino. Complete information is available at the school's web page devoted to the meet. The schedule is repeated here:

9:15 - Boys A
9:45 - Boys B
10:15 - Boys C
10:45 - Boys D
11:15 - Girls A
11:45 - Girls B
12:15 - Girls C
12:45 - Girls D

Once again, TullyRunners has done a very nice job of previewing the State Meet. A few comments of my own:
Boys A - R-H predicted 3rd - a good race catches Shaker; a great race catches F-M. It will depend on 4&5. Travis Jordan is "seeded" 20th, behind the R-H top trio at 9-13-16.
Boys B - Looking forward to seeing whether East Aurora can pull this off. HF-L started to bring it on last weekend, and expect Cooper Roach to be in the hunt for the individual title.
Boys C - Way-Co will find that the state-level competition is much tougher than the locals! Tim McGowan, last week's individual winner, will have to have a great race to make the top 20 or 25.
Boys D - Geneseo lost too much to repeat as team champ, but Gabe Rodriguez gives them another legitimate contender for the individual title. Jeff Antolos beat him last week, so their rematch plus a couple of other strong runners should make this a decent race up front. I'm rooting for Addison's Thomas Abbey in this one.

Girls A - Amanda just misses the cutoff on the preview, which lists 27 entrants. She should be able to improve on last year's 40th place finish, despite the faster race this year due to the reduction in classes. Canandaigua should do well, but they do face the top two teams in the nation in F-M and Saratoga.
Girls B - EA's six-year reign is about to end, and HF-L could push EA all the way back to 5th place. There are no front-runners in Section V, but they should come in quickly once they start to appear.
Girls C - Two very good teams here will mean that a third place finish for Way-Co would be excellent. Odyssey's Nicole Bubie is Section V's best hope for a top 15 finish.
Girls D - Maple Grove is very good. To finish second, Geneseo will have to get by Beaver River. Liz Valento looked strong last week and is favored to grab an individual title for Section V.

Sectionals

2011-11-10T12:56:00.000-05:00

I don't have time to go over the meet in detail right now, but what an exciting day!

Complete results are available at Yen Timing, in this folder: http://www.yentiming.com/results/2011/xc/sectionv/

Our boys had an outstanding race overall, as is best displayed in the "Merged" results, where they took 12th overall, beating everyone that was within reach. The 11th place team, Hilton, was 115 points ahead, nearly 20 seconds per man. My favorite statistic of the day was the compare to the [corrected] computer times that I had with me on Saturday. The 96 boys on the list were, on average, 3 seconds faster than the computer had predicted. Our team averaged 14 seconds faster, led by Zach's 48 second improvement, slightly better than R-H's 10 seconds faster (Colby Burke was their leader, at 23 seconds faster than predicted).

Our girls also placed 12th in the merged results, which was a good performance after all of the injuries we faced. And Amanda qualified for the State Meet for the second year in a row. Val had her best race ever, in terms of speed, but just missed making States. After reviewing all of the results from all of the Sectional races around the state, it is clear that Val is the fastest girl that did not qualify. The next fastest, interestingly enough, was Fayetteville-Manlius's 8th girl, who would have been the second individual qualifier in Section III, if she attended a different school. The speed ratings indicate that Val was 19 seconds faster. So, I guess that actually means that R-H's girls, Lizzie Greiner and Alana MacDonald are the next fastest non-qualifiers. What an incredibly fast race!

Section V Preview - Class A

2011-11-04T09:37:00.002-04:00

It is Sectional Eve and time to post the preview of our races.

Girls A

Canandaigua has looked solid all year, but won by "only" 15 points at Counties. Given that their top 3 runners can't score much lower, it will be up to the D'Amore twins to put the meet away. R-H, on the other hand, while running quite well at Counties, had 12 points available within 2 seconds of their 3-4-5 pack, which would have made it a 3-point meet. Meanwhile Penfield, 10 points behind R-H, was running without their #4, which likely cost them about 14 points. So, there are three teams with a legitimate shot at advancing to the State meet. Here is the prediction:

Canandaigua 66
Rush Henrietta 82
Penfield 90
Schroeder 142
Hilton 157
Fairport 158
Victor 169
Thomas 172
Irondequoit 196
Athena 283
Brockport 289
Churchville Chili 293
Spencerport 415
Gates Chili 448
Edison inc
Monroe/Wilson/Jeff inc

As for individuals, this race is loaded: 26 of the top 32 girls from the Monroe County Championships are in this race! I expect a repeat of Counties at the very top, with Meghan McCormick holding off Katie Lembo and Leila Mantilla. Here is a look at the possible top 50:

McCormick, Meghan Canandaigua 18:20
Lembo, Katie Penfield 18:28
Mantilla, Leila Penfield 18:33
McCormick, Kate Canandaigua 19:00
Palermo, Val Schroeder 19:07
Paratore, Amanda Schroeder 19:08
Jensen, Kennedy Canandaigua 19:10
Albrecht, Autumn Brockport 19:15
O'Neill, Karli Churchville Chili 19:29
O'Hara, Eileen Thomas 19:33
Greiner, Lizzie Rush Henrietta 19:35
Tuttle, Georgia Irondequoit 19:35
MacDonald, Alana Rush Henrietta 19:47
Sedita, Erin Fairport 19:52
Lawler, Maggie Victor 19:52
O'Hara, Shannon Thomas 19:58
Griffin, Tishae Rush Henrietta 19:59
Tate, Tiffany Irondequoit 20:00
Hughes, Ashton Fairport 20:01
Quinn, Siobhan Rush Henrietta 20:02
Greiner, Becky Rush Henrietta 20:02
Heyer, Lindsay Penfield 20:07
Palmeri, Amanda Hilton 20:08
Keene, Haley Hilton 20:17
D'Amore, Lauren Canandaigua 20:21
Schnaufer, Illana Penfield 20:21
Dehm, Olivia Victor 20:26
Camillaci, Zoe Hilton 20:28
D'Amore, Kendall Canandaigua 20:36
Jones, Emma Rush Henrietta 20:41
Griffiths, Monica Hilton 20:41
Fries, Aly Victor 20:43
Bailey, Alaina Schroeder 20:44
Adams, Laura Thomas 20:46
McElligott, Meghan Fairport 20:48
Garbinski, Dana Canandaigua 20:49
Cok, Sarah Penfield 20:51
Lafferty, Courtney Athena 20:53
Bourcy, Abby Penfield 20:53
Roose, Serena Brockport 20:56
Wagner, Clara Irondequoit 20:58
Glitch, Kristina Rush Henrietta 21:00
Rosenthal, Jane Fairport 21:04
Miller, Hayley Canandaigua 21:05
Bellinger, Megan Victor 21:05
Yurksaitis, Sarah Schroeder 21:08
Lenhardt, Carly Fairport 21:09
Fahrenholz, Tori Penfield 21:09
Bucci, Loryn Fairport 21:09
Erickson, Kate Victor 21:14

Boys A

The boys team race should be all R-H. They scored 30 points at Counties, and actually won a dual meet against the other 23 schools in the county by taking the top 3 spots! Irondequoit has a good team, ranked 19th in the state, but Thomas was only 11 points back at Counties, while Victor did not seem to be racing hard (MJ Erb and Connor Hayward back in 23-24), and could also challenge for second.

Rush Henrietta 25
Irondequoit 105
Victor 113
Thomas 115
Hilton 146
Fairport 152
McQuaid 202
Athena 226
Penfield 239
Schroeder 254
Gates Chili 267
Canandaigua 316
Churchville Chili 356
Brockport 415
Spencerport 444
Edison 505
Monroe/Wilson/Jeff inc

The boys individual race will also feature R-H. Only 21 of the top 32 from Counties are in the A race this weekend - not as lopsided as the girls race, and 6 of them are from R-H. Travis Jordan from Gates-Chili and MJ Erb from Victor are the only guys with a reasonable shot of preventing another 1-2-3 finish by R-H. The battle for the individual state meet slots will be intense. The computer sees as many as 6 runners within 4 seconds battling for the final spot. This has been the year of the Sophomore, and behind Mickey Burke, there are 3 more with a good chance to be on the bus for the state meet: Tyler Ranke from Hilton, Josh Dyrland from Irondequoit and Thomas's Josh Goldstein. In all, 12 of the top 36 spots could be Sophomores in this race.

Kozyra, Nate Rush Henrietta 16:09
Burke, Mickey Rush Henrietta 16:15
Sweeney, Andrew Rush Henrietta 16:16
Jordon, Travis Gates Chili 16:23
Erb, M.J. Victor 16:33
Ranke, Tyler Hilton 16:33
Dyrland, Josh Irondequoit 16:45
Raymond, Alex Rush Henrietta 16:46
Bigenwald, Eric Irondequoit 16:50
Goldstein, Josh Thomas 16:51
Burke, Colby Rush Henrietta 16:52
Sullivan, Michael McQuaid 16:53
Hayward, Connor Victor 16:54
Scott, Jack Fairport 16:54
Andrievsky, Sasha Thomas 16:54
Root, Brennan Rush Henrietta 16:57
Kassu, Mintesinot Athena 17:05
Johnson, Keith Thomas 17:06
Roth, Corey Hilton 17:07
Burgin, Will Schroeder 17:10
Koss, Nick Irondequoit 17:11
Shanahan, Luke Victor 17:13
White, Jimmy Fairport 17:15
Stuver, A.J. McQuaid 17:17
Moran, Mitch Penfield 17:18
Mizma, Mitch Hilton 17:22
Penner, Andy Fairport 17:24
Schantz, Mike Rush Henrietta 17:25
Beaujon, Allen Canandaigua 17:26
Paige, Aaron Irondequoit 17:27
Trombley, Nick Canandaigua 17:28
Kozlowski, Mike Penfield 17:28
Peffley, Chris Thomas 17:30
Sykora, Josh Brockport 17:31
Buri, Josh Hilton 17:32
Mertens, George Victor 17:33
Steiger, Aidan Victor 17:34
Wilczewski, James Irondequoit 17:36
Baller, Mitchell Thomas 17:36
Reed, Justin Schroeder 17:36
Wagner, Ray Irondequoit 17:38
Lauria, Mike Athena 17:39
Wolf, Josh Fairport 17:39
Pease, Keith Athena 17:42
Razavi, Mike Fairport 17:42
Ciolkowski, Nick McQuaid 17:42
Tassone, Brendan Penfield 17:43
Staveski, Adam Fairport 17:44
Whitman, Ben Thomas 17:44
Muzdakis, Zachary Irondequoit 17:46

Section V Preview - Class D

2011-11-03T14:24:00.001-04:00

OK, on to the little schools. This is the toughest for me to analyze, since we don't really race any of these schools.

Girls D

The current state rankings include the following Section V schools: #4-Geneseo; #5-Oakfield-Alabama; #8-Red Creek; #12-Campbell-Savona (Honeoye was 13th last week), so I focused my attention on those schools (plus Addison), and it looks like we could see the results shake out like this:

Geneseo 89
Oakfield-Alabama 114
Red Creek 119
Campbell-Savona 180
Honeoye 201
Addison 285

So, it looks like it really comes down to a three-team race, with Geneseo having the edge. It should be close. Note - Pavilion is Class D, so this comment belongs here, not in the Class C outlook: Pavilion never found a fifth girl, so they will not factor in the team results.

The individuals that could be in the running for a spot at the State meet:

Liz Valento Pavilion
Sarah Coon Red Jacket
Jeanette Schramm Harley-Allendale
Heather Yuhnke Pavilion
Megan Bouton Campbell-Savona
Raylene Wade Red Creek
Brenna Lyons Addison
Anna Warner Notre Dame-Bat
Erin Schiano Keshequa
Casey Emerson Geneseo
Jordan Prescott Pavilion
Brianna Horn Geneseo
Ashley Covel Oakfield-Alabama
Lindsay Ryan Geneseo
Jenny Crossen Oakfield-Alabama
Faith McDonald Red Creek
Allyson Fenton Clyde-Savannah
Anna Phillips Avon

Boys D

This team race has the potential to be the most exciting of the day. As with the Class D girls, there are 5 teams in the current state ranking list: #6-Geneseo; #7-Batavia-Notre Dame; #8-Oakfield-Alabama; #9-Campbell-Savona and #14-Addison. So, four teams that are right in a row in the state rankings, plus a team that beat the fourth team by one point at their County Championships last Friday. Taking into account the information that I could dig up, my best guess scrambles those rankings a bit, although Geneseo retains a slight edge. Here's how I see it:

Geneseo 107
Campbell-Savona 118
Addison 123
Notre Dame-Batavia 155
Oakfield-Alabama 187

With the number of schools in this race, these scores can change dramatically. Although Harley's fourth and fifth kids are back a bit, with 3 runners in the list below, they could be a factor.

Here are the top 22 individuals, according to Tully, with the top 3 being well ahead of the pack (and spaced somewhat themselves):

Gabe Rodriguez Geneseo
Jeff Antolos Notre Dame-Bat
Devon Rodriguez Geneseo
Jon Pearl Campbell-Savona
Thomas Abbey Addison
Ethan Richardson Pavilion
Connor George Oakfield-Alabama
Gabe Bender Oakfield-Alabama
Everett Geiger Caledonia Mumford
Andrew Fischer Notre Dame-Bat
Mitch Cicero Perry
Gaylen Snyder Avon
Ben Ivie Wheatland Chili
Jon Chapin Canisteo-Greenwood
Russell Hegedorn Harley Allendale
Alex Hall Caledonia Mumford
Matt Gibney Lima Christian
Mike Verstraete Marion
Arron Carlson Notre Dame-Bat
Aamir Zain Harley Allendale
Duncan Phillips Harley Allendale
Seth Burton Addison

Section V Preview - Class B

2011-11-02T09:14:00.001-04:00

Today, we'll look over the Class B races, and the Boys race could wind up being the most exciting race of the day. But, ladies first...

Girls

There is no doubt that HF-L is the heavy favorite. Mendon has a very good team (currently ranked 9th in Class B), but HF-L is just enough ahead at each spot to be the team to beat. Here's the likely top 5 teams:

HF-L 26
Mendon 44
Sutherland 91
Brighton 104
Livonia 125

The individual race should be exciting, with the top 3 from HF-L and the top 2 from Mendon likely separating themselves from the rest of the field. Let's call this list the 21 most likely to make the top 15. Since this specific course has never been run before, I am totally making up the likely winning time - I think that the course will be much faster than this, with the bulk of the hill that defined the course having been removed, and with conditions expected to be ideal for racing on Saturday (let's hope those weathermen are correct) - possibly 15-30 seconds faster.

Cole, Hannah Honeoye Falls Lima 18:58
Hallock, Allison Mendon 18:59
Engel, Katie Honeoye Falls Lima 19:02
Roncone, Krista Mendon 19:04
Steinke, Ruth Honeoye Falls Lima 19:11
Wagner, Robin Brighton 19:31
Williams, Jenna Honeoye Falls Lima 19:44
Ryan, Kylie Mendon 19:53
Douglas, Riley Honeoye Falls Lima 19:55
Yancey, Colleen Mendon 20:04
Collins, Michelle Geneva 20:07
Mizes, Alicia Sutherland 20:13
Visca, Mary Sutherland 20:14
Swertfeger, Sarah Olympia 20:20
Pinker, Talia Brighton 20:25
Wojnowski, Stephanie East Irondequoit 20:25
Wojnowski, Veronica East Irondequoit 20:25
Steensma, Erika Wayne 20:26
Olson, Tricia Brighton 20:26
Mineti, Melissa Livonia 20:27
Cole, Ari Honeoye Falls Lima 20:31

Boys

This is likely to be one of the two most hotly contested team titles on the day. HF-L sat out the preview last weekend at Counties (with the decline of Wayne this year, the top of this race will be all Monroe County). I'm not sure if that will help or hurt HF-L, but one should never second-guess Bernie, based on his incredible success at Sectionals over the years. HF-L won the division, thanks to a 26-29 win over Mendon in the last meet of the season (and did it without their 4th man). Early in the season, it didn't look like they would be strong through the 5th runner, but they certainly are. Interestingly, the computer still does not think HF-L will pull it off, placing them third. I still consider them the favorite, so I've slid them ahead of Brighton, as a compromise. Expect this one to be decided by seconds, and any of the top three teams could win.

Mendon 49
HF-L 51
Brighton 60
Sutherland 88

The individual title will be a two-man race. Mike Anvelt beat everyone not from R-H last weekend, but I expect that Cooper Roach is likely to edge him out. The computer disagrees; here are the top runners in the race:

Roach, Cooper Honeoye Falls Lima 15:46
Anvelt, Mike Sutherland 15:47
Wesley, Jack Mendon 16:06
Burton, Will Mendon 16:13
Ronchetti, Will Brighton 16:23
Phelan, Will Sutherland 16:25
Stahl, Eric Brighton 16:27
Mullen, Andrew Brighton 16:28
Brunett, Joe Honeoye Falls Lima 16:31
Green, Connor Mendon 16:33
Paganelli, JT Honeoye Falls Lima 16:37
Mulcahy, Collin Batavia 16:39
Leo, Patrick Honeoye Falls Lima 16:47
Pavia, Corey Mendon 16:49
Kassu, Mintesinot Athena 16:51
Tarduno, Matthew Brighton 16:52
Lawlor, John Honeoye Falls Lima 16:55
VanVleck, Matt Mendon 16:56
Strang, Alex Sutherland 16:57
Douglas, Langton Honeoye Falls Lima 16:57
Northrup, Brian Arcadia 16:58
Laird, Jon Batavia 16:58
Young, Robert Mendon 17:00
Hassett, Jeremy Newark 17:01
Simpson, Zachary Brighton 17:03
Tshibangu, Raphael Olympia 17:04
VanDeMortel, Matt Geneva 17:04
Cove, Zach Sutherland 17:05

Expect Class D tomorrow...

Section V Preview

2011-11-01T14:44:00.001-04:00

Over the next four days, I'll post some random preview information regarding the Section V Championships on Saturday at Genesee Community College. First, the schedule for Saturday:

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

Today, I'll preview Class C, which interests me the least and, therefore, requires the least time to analyze.

Class C Girls

Wayland-Cohocton is the clear favorite. Their closest challenger is likely to be Byron-Bergen, who was about 30 seconds per runner behind them last week. Williamson looks like they may be able to get a fifth girl across the line in time to finish third.

Nicole Bubie from Odyssey really surprised me in the opening league meet this year, keeping up with Val and Amanda for over two miles, after being two minutes behind them at Counties a year ago. So, she has to be the favorite for the individual title. The other contenders for the state meet berths are simply grabbed from Tullyrunners:

Nicole Bubie Odyssey
Meghan Curtin Wayland-Cohocton
Evelyn Pinneo Penn Yan
Hannah Groshner Wayland-Cohocton
Sarah Donovan Byron-Bergen
Lauren Cook Bath-Haverling
Maggie Callan Leroy
McKenzie Bennett Dansville
Kim Lovett Byron-Bergen
RaYanne Luke Williamson
Rebecca Schwan LeRoy

Class C Boys

The Wayland-Cohocton boys should make it a sweep for the school in Class C. They are the only C team in the section that are currently ranked in the state. I'm trying to find a team that could be even close. Williamson won the Wayne County meet with a nice race, but they were about 130 points behind Way-Co at McQuaid. Way-Co was well off their best performance at their league meet last weekend - I assume that was intentional.

Top dozen individuals, strictly purloined from Tully:

David Smith Holley
Tim McGowan Dansville
Brandon Selbig Wayland-Cohocton
Jon Beiswanger Williamson
Jacob Bailey Williamson
Martin Beadle Holley
Jeff Mangiafesto Greece Odyssey
Jacob Champlin Marcus Whitman
Randi Rudnik Pembroke
Aaron Kelly Wayland-Cohocton
Brett Barden Dansville
Charlie Flagg Wayland-Cohocton

Monroe County Championships - Girls Preview

2011-10-28T14:13:00.002-04:00

WARNING (or plea): DO NOT PARK ON THE GRASS AT PARMA PARK!

Although Penfield is only ranked one spot behind Canandaigua in the NY State rankings (#4 vs. #3), it is clear that Canandaigua has a large advantage in runners 3 thru 5, and should win comfortably. In fact, the computer analysis slides not only HF-L (#4 in Class B), but R-H (#9 in Class A) ahead of Penfield as well. Mendon (9th in Class B) is expected to round out the top five. As with the boys, it will be interesting to see which teams may decide to sit this one out.

Canandaigua 84
Honeoye Falls Lima 100
Rush Henrietta 121
Penfield 127
Mendon 165
Schroeder 197
Fairport 216
Hilton 229
Thomas 232
Victor 258
Irondequoit 261
Sutherland 308
Brighton 318
Churchville Chili 405
Athena 423
Brockport 433
East Irondequoit 488
Odyssey 522
Batavia 581
Spencerport 625
Gates Chili 663
East Rochester 705
Arcadia inc
Olympia inc

The individual race could be quite interesting. The Penfield duo of Leila Mantilla and Katie Lembo have looked like the best all year, until the final league meet against Canandaigua, when they were split by Meghan McCormick and Kennedy Jensen. While Leila just destroyed the Parma course record set by Meghan last year (18:28 to 19:03), Katie was 30 seconds back. But last Saturday, Katie was the winner at the Clarence invitational, winning by 23 seconds in a very fast 18:55.

The top 40 girls look like this:

Mantilla, Leila Penfield
Lembo, Katie Penfield
McCormick, Meghan Canandaigua
Jensen, Kennedy Canandaigua
Palermo, Val Schroeder
Paratore, Amanda Schroeder
McCormick, Kate Canandaigua
Hallock, Allison Mendon
Engel, Katie Honeoye Falls Lima
O'Neill, Karli Churchville Chili
Cole, Hannah Honeoye Falls Lima
Tuttle, Georgia Irondequoit
Albrecht, Autumn Brockport
Steinke, Ruth Honeoye Falls Lima
Bubie, Nicole Odyssey
Sedita, Erin Fairport
Wagner, Robin Brighton
Hughes, Ashton Fairport
Tate, Tiffany Irondequoit
O'Hara, Eileen Thomas
Lawler, Maggie Victor
Douglas, Riley Honeoye Falls Lima
Greiner, Lizzie Rush Henrietta
MacDonald, Alana Rush Henrietta
O'Hara, Shannon Thomas
Williams, Jenna Honeoye Falls Lima
Griffin, Tishae Rush Henrietta
Quinn, Siobhan Rush Henrietta
Keene, Haley Hilton
Heyer, Lindsay Penfield
Palmeri, Amanda Hilton
Bailey, Alaina Schroeder
D'Amore, Lauren Canandaigua
Greiner, Becky Rush Henrietta
Ryan, Kylie Mendon
Yancey, Colleen Mendon
Dehm, Olivia Victor
Bourcy, Abby Penfield
Schnaufer, Illana Penfield
D'Amore, Kendall Canandaigua

Monroe County Championship - Boys Preview

2011-10-27T15:02:00.004-04:00

First, here is some important information about the meet.

It has been moved to Parma Park, directions from Schroeder are here:

View Larger Map

The meet schedule is as follows:

11:15 Modified Girls

11:45 Modified Boys

1:00 JV Girls (all non-varsity Schroeder girls running here)

1:30 JV Boys (all non-varsity Schroeder boys in grades 9/10 running here)

2:00 Varsity Girls

2:30 Varsity Boys

3:00 Varsity “B” Girls

3:30 Varsity “B” Boys (all non-varsity Schroeder boys in grades 11/12 running here)

Wear waterproof footwear; it will be very wet/muddy in the best spectator areas

Now, for the predictions - today will be the Boys Varsity race. This is difficult, because it is quite possible that some teams will not run their varsity this week, with more concern about Sectionals and beyond, and not wanting to risk something happening this weekend, given the conditions.

Rush-Henrietta is the overwhelming favorite, if they choose to participate. Otherwise Mendon would likely be favored over HF-L (another team that may not appear on the starting line), despite losing to them in the dual meet last week, 26-29. HF-L's 4th runner did not compete, but several of Mendon's runners did not seem to be putting forth a full effort. Brighton would also have a decent shot, and Victor and Irondequoit could not be ruled out. There are clear break points after the top 10 teams and after the top 15 - expect to see much movement within the three "groups" of teams, but not much across the boundaries (except where teams decide not to play). Here is what the computer says:

Rush Henrietta 49
Mendon 91
Brighton 117
Victor 146
Honeoye Falls Lima 161
Irondequoit 177
Sutherland 189
Thomas 198
Fairport 212
Hilton 232
Penfield 337
Athena 365
Batavia 377
Schroeder 379
Gates Chili 402
Canandaigua 470
Arcadia 502
Churchville Chili 527
Olympia 582
Brockport 639
Spencerport 650
Odyssey 670
East Rochester 672
East Irondequoit 688

As for individuals, I think Mike Anvelt from Sutherland is the man to beat. I think it is likely that the guys most likely to have a shot at beating him, Nate Kozyra, Andrew Sweeney and Mickey Burke from R-H, and Cooper Roach from HF-L, are the guys most likely to back off, or skip the race entirely. M.J. Erb from Victor is a potential challenger, and I imagine Travis Jordon from Gates will be there to race.

If everyone runs, the top 40 could look like this (I have not added times to the prediction this year, because of the variability in the likely conditions at race time):

Anvelt, Mike Sutherland
Kozyra, Nate Rush Henrietta
Roach, Cooper Honeoye Falls Lima
Sweeney, Andrew Rush Henrietta
Burton, Will Mendon
Erb, M.J. Victor
Jordon, Travis Gates Chili
Burke, Mickey Rush Henrietta
VanVleck, Matt Mendon
Wesley, Jack Mendon
Ranke, Tyler Hilton
Raymond, Alex Rush Henrietta
Hayward, Connor Victor
Pavia, Corey Mendon
Goldstein, Josh Thomas
Scott, Jack Fairport
Dyrland, Josh Irondequoit
Phelan, Will Sutherland
Mullen, Andrew Brighton
Mulcahy, Collin Batavia
Ronchetti, Will Brighton
Burke, Colby Rush Henrietta
Andrievsky, Sasha Thomas
Moran, Mitch Penfield
Stahl, Eric Brighton
Roth, Corey Hilton
Kassu, Mintesinot Athena
Brunett, Joe Honeoye Falls Lima
Koss, Nick Irondequoit
Green, Connor Mendon
Paganelli, JT Honeoye Falls Lima
Tarduno, Matthew Brighton
Root, Brennan Rush Henrietta
Bigenwald, Eric Irondequoit
Shanahan, Luke Victor
Tshibangu, Raphael Olympia
Young, Robert Mendon
Burgin, Will Schroeder
White, Jimmy Fairport
Strang, Alex Sutherland

Girls predictions coming tomorrow...

Venue Change for Counties

2011-10-25T12:28:00.000-04:00

It is highly likely that the Monroe County Championships will not be held at Genesee Valley Park this year. Due to the course condition (after McQuaid, plus a college meet two weeks ago) and with more rain in the forecast before Saturday, it appears that would not be a safe course for the runners.

Stay tuned, but it appears that Parma Park will be the location. We have had good success on that course in recent years, so this should be a positive change from the mud pits of Genesee Valley!

Back in Black

2011-10-18T15:22:00.000-04:00

Our final week of the league meet schedule brings us back to Black Creek Park, where last week, Val and Amanda went under the course record time.

Today, the girls will face a tough challenge from a Sutherland team that stands between them and a record 18 wins for the season. The Sutherland girls don't have a front runner that will lead the way, but they do arrive to the finish quickly as a group.

The boys face two serious challengers in Batavia and Gates-Chili (the Sutherland boys are quite good, and should take top honors today). Neither team has been able to generate a 5th runner, which will really hurt them in large championship races, but they can be a force in dual meets. Defeating both teams, along with East Rochester, would allow the boys to finish the season at 12-11, for a third consecutive winning season!

Top Girls

van der Sloot, Kate Sutherland 21:02
Mizes, Alicia Sutherland 21:03
Mulroy, Jessica Sutherland 21:28
Jacobson, Audrey Sutherland 21:45
Smith, Rachel Sutherland 21:57
Visca, Mary Sutherland 21:59
Holmes, Alexandra Sutherland 22:10
Masood, Raisa Sutherland 22:43
Kindig, Alexis Batavia 22:49
Walter, Jennifer Sutherland 22:59
Filbert, Tiara Batavia 23:31
Eastridge, Emma Batavia 23:43
Mulroy, Casey Sutherland 23:56
Wagner, Emily Batavia 24:18
Burke, Shannon Sutherland 24:43
Austin, Michaela Batavia 25:18
Quinn, Kennedy Gates Chili 25:32
Boy, Virginia East Rochester 25:35

Top Boys

Anvelt, Mike Sutherland 16:10
Jordon, Travis Gates Chili 16:29
Phelan, Will Sutherland 16:53
Mulcahy, Collin Batavia 16:57
Strang, Alex Sutherland 17:16
Laird, Jon Batavia 17:21
Cove, Zach Sutherland 17:31
Moore, Weston Gates Chili 17:51
Huot, Marco Sutherland 18:03
Tobey, Kevin Gates Chili 18:07
Demmer, Ty Batavia 18:15
Ernst, Mitch Batavia 18:2
3 Ding, Alex Sutherland 18:25
Black, Ryan Sutherland 18:26
Ferrante, Christian Gates Chili 18:36
Demay, Tyler East Rochester 18:38
Hanns, Jacob East Rochester 18:40

Week 5 Recap

2011-10-12T10:17:00.001-04:00

Another interesting week of Monroe County XC!

Black Creek

Let's start things off with the Course Record of the week. Our very own Valerie Palermo edged teammate Amanda Paratore, 19:33 to 19:34, as both were under the 19:35 course record for Black Creek Park. They received a strong challenge from Karli O'Neill of Churchville, who finished in 19:38. Alaina Bailey completed a 1-2-4 finish for Schroeder, clinching victories over Victor and Hilton.

Victor won the boys meet easily, sweeping the top 3 places. Hilton was running without their top runner, sophomore sensation Tyler Ranke, but still managed to edge Schroeder, 27-28.

Center Park

This was a race of pairs: Katie Lembo and Leila Mantilla went 1-2, yet again, to lead Penfield to convincing wins over Fairport and Thomas. Fairport's Erin Sedita and Ashton Hughes went 3-4, ahead of the O'Hara sisters from Thomas, and Fairport prevailed, 26-29.

The Thomas youngsters were no match for Fairport's veteran boys and they lost, 23-33.

Basil Marella

Domination. That was the word of the day for Canandaigua. Running without their #1, Meghan McCormick again (is she injured?), they still went 1-2-3 and took 6 of the top 10 spots to even beat Irondequoit, 19-38. Irondequoit's newcomer, Tiffany Tate, who had set the Black Creek course record earlier this year, has now slipped back to third on the team.

Irondequoit's boys were almost as impressive - not as loaded up front, but deeper - and they grabbed 8 of the first 14 places for four easy wins.

Seneca Park

HF-L's big three: Hannah Cole, Ruth Steinke and Katie Engel now own 11 of the top 25 times at Seneca Park. Their latest adds were compliments of a 1-2-4 finish over Rush-Henrietta and led to a 23-32 win, in the battle between NY state's 3rd-rated Class B team and 9th-rated Class A team.

In the boys race, R-H seriously took the day off, losing to HF-L (15-49), Brighton (22-33) and even Batavia (24-33).

Northampton Park

This was a long way to travel to hold the battle of Pittsford! The Mendon girls were solid, taking 5 of the top 11 spots, and defeated their cross-town rivals, 21-34.

And what a battle on the boys side! Sutherland went 1-2, with Mike Anvelt winning again. But Mendon went 3-4-5 (by 4 seconds) and 7 (by 7 seconds) and 9-10-11 (by 8 seconds), to capture a 28-29 win, with all 7 of their runners coming into play. The Pittsford teams combined to take the top 10 places.

Construction Alert!

2011-10-11T07:59:00.000-04:00

Regarding today's meet at Black Creek Park (and next week's meet at the same location)...

The bridge over Black Creek on Union St is closed. The posted detour requires a left onto 33A, which really backs up, so I would suggest getting off at the Chili Center (Rt 386) exit and taking 33A west to the detour. Those directions are reflected in the following Google Maps rendition:

View Larger Map

Scouting Report - Week 5

2011-10-10T22:10:00.000-04:00

The girls run first again this week. This week, although the Victor girls are a strong team, we only face one state-ranked team, #25 Hilton, which is strange because the computer expects Victor to beat Hilton, 27-30. Here are the top individuals that we face:

O'Neill, Karli Churchville Chili 20:12
Lawler, Maggie Victor 20:43
Keene, Haley Hilton 21:01
Palmeri, Amanda Hilton 21:19
Dehm, Olivia Victor 21:25
Griffiths, Monica Hilton 21:34
Wojnowski, Stephanie East Irondequoit 21:41
Fries, Aly Victor 21:42
Bellinger, Megan Victor 21:54
Wojnowski, Veronica East Irondequoit 22:05
Cammillaci, Zoe Hilton 22:15
Erickson, Kate Victor 22:20
Roman, Christine Churchville Chili 22:29
Bellavia, Maria Victor 22:34
Mazza, Lydia Victor 22:44
Brown, Megan Churchville Chili 22:45
Calderon, Brianna East Irondequoit 22:50
Kunigan, Mary Hilton 22:53
Sealy, Krista Hilton 23:04
Ruhland, Genevieve Churchville Chili 23:15
Monroe, Abigail Churchville Chili 23:20

On the boys side, Victor is not ranked, but the computer still has them slightly better than #14 Irondequoit. Hilton also has a solid team. Here are the boys to look for near the front tomorrow:

Erb, M.J. Victor 16:48
Ranke, Tyler Hilton 17:09
Hayward, Connor Victor 17:22
Roth, Corey Hilton 17:40
Shanahan, Luke Victor 17:47
Steiger, Aidan Victor 18:03
Mertens, George Victor 18:14
Buri, Josh Hilton 18:17
Mizma, Mitch Hilton 18:21
Smathers, Mike Victor 18:27
Viggiani, Dan Churchville Chili 18:32
Wright, Rob Hilton 18:33
Erickson, Jack Victor 18:38
Mertens, Ben Victor 18:39
Whitmarsh, Ryan Hilton 18:43
Spitzer, Matt Victor 18:43
Mikols, Eric Churchville Chili 18:57
Glavin, Donovan Hilton 19:03
Peerenboom, Cam Hilton 19:16
Goebel, Mike Victor 19:20
Graham, George East Irondequoit 19:24

Week 4 Recap

2011-10-05T15:02:00.000-04:00

There were certainly some exciting races around the Monroe County XC League yesterday. Some of the top action was at our meet. Here is a look around the County...

Basil Marella
Rush-Henrietta's depth was the story of the girls race. Despite Val and Amanda going 1-2 and Fairport's Ashton Hughes and Erin Sedita going 3-4, R-H was able to defeat Schroeder, 27-30 and Fairport, 26-31. Val and Amanda led wire-to-wire in posting the 8th and 9th best times on the course. We showed that the McQuaid results were no fluke in edging Fairport, 26-29. Yesterday, the latest State Rankings came out, with Webster Schroeder at #17! That marks the first time the Schroeder girls have been ranked since 19??. R-H is ranked at #8 and Fairport #24, joining a total of 6 Monroe County teams ranked in the top 25 (plus 3 others in Class B).

In the Boys race, R-H held out several of their top runner in between McQuaid last weekend and Manhattan this coming weekend, but still fended off a tightly-grouped Fairport team, 25-30. In a very exciting dual, we edged Athena, 26-31 in a tight race that went back and forth a couple of times. The suprise overall winner of the Boys race was Athena's XXX. I did not see the finish, so I'm not sure when he made his final move to win.

And I was able to chat a bit with a former college teammate, whose son is the top runner for Spencerport.

Mendon West
Canandaigua, with the McCormick sisters getting a day off, still edged Sutherland, 27-28, as Sutherland just couldn't get a 5th runner to the finish line in time. But in the meet against Brighton, Sutherland got not only a 5th runner to the line, but a 6th ahead of Brighton's 5th as well, to win the meet on the tiebreaker at 28-28.

In the Boys race, Sutherland and Brighton were tied after 4 runners each, but Brighton's 5-6-7 came in as a pack, ahead of Sutherland's 5th, for a 27-30 win. Sutherland's Mike Anvelt, who is having a great year, picked up another win.

Seneca Park
It looks like the HF-L troika did not try to challenge Irondequoit's Georgia Tuttle for the win, but their team managed to take places 2-3-4-7-8 overall for convincing wins over all opponents, most notably Hilton.

The Irondequoit boys had an impressive showing, with a 1-5 spread of just 23 seconds, led by 3rd place finisher, sophomore Josh Dyrland. That was enough for a 24-34 win over HF-L.

Webster Park
The Thomas girls put on a nice performance on their home course, including a win by Eileen O'Hara, but couldn't keep up with Mendon, losing 24-32. They did win easily over Victor, 23-34.

The Boys race was a story of Sophomores, 9 of the top 21 finishers were 10th graders, showing that Mendon, Thomas and Victor will be strong for a couple more years.

Northampton Park
Penfield breezed through the Girls race, taking 7 of the top 9 spots. Leila Mantilla and Katie Lembo went 1-2 in 18:50 and 18:51, crushing the former course record of 20:02 on this lesser-used (and new in 2009) course.

The Penfield Boys also won all 4 of their meets in a convincing manner.

Back to Basil

2011-10-04T12:21:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't had time to write up anything about McQuaid yet. What an exciting day - the weather was unable to dampen my enthusiasm with the performances that I saw! For now, you can find complete results for 2011. And I will write more later.

Today's meet features a return to Basil Marella Park in Greece, site of our opening meet this year. You can find directions in the article that talked about the first meet. This time, the Girls run first, at 4:30, then the Modified race, then the Boys (probably starting between 5:15 and 5:25).

The girls race features the Fairport team that was ranked #14 in the state, going into McQuaid. We managed to beat them there, and I imagine they will be looking for revenge today. The Rush-Henrietta girls are outstanding - they were accidentally ranked in Class B last week, and they beat us by 49 points at McQuaid, averaging only 7 seconds faster per runner than us. The top runners:

Greiner, Lizzie Rush Henrietta 20:22
Sedita, Erin Fairport 20:29
Griffin, Tishae Rush Henrietta 20:40
MacDonald, Alana Rush Henrietta 20:45
Quinn, Siobhan Rush Henrietta 20:47
Hughes, Ashton Fairport 20:48
Greiner, Becky Rush Henrietta 20:54
Jones, Emma Rush Henrietta 21:11
McElligott, Meghan Fairport 21:35
Lafferty, Courtney Athena 21:43
Bucci, Loryn Fairport 21:46
Glitch, Kristina Rush Henrietta 21:46
Rosenthal, Jane Fairport 21:51
Lenhardt, Carly Fairport 21:59
Handley, Janelle Athena 22:19
Nortz, Heather Fairport 22:23
Butler, Sarah Athena 22:24
Ward, Brittany Athena 22:31
Hope, Mabel Spencerport 22:33

The R-H Boys are between big invitationals, but even their JV team is very strong. Fairport has a good group of runners and is ranked #8 in Section V. Athena is coming of a McQuaid Championship - winning the unseeded medium school race. So, we have 3 formidable opponents (Spencerport is a little down this year). Here are the top runners:

Kozyra, Nate Rush Henrietta 16:39
Sweeney, Andrew Rush Henrietta 16:52
Burke, Mickey Rush Henrietta 17:01
Raymond, Alex Rush Henrietta 17:30
Scott, Jack Fairport 17:33
Burke, Colby Rush Henrietta 17:43
Kassu, Mintesinot Athena 17:43
Root, Brennan Rush Henrietta 17:46
White, Jimmy Fairport 17:52
Schantz, Mike Rush Henrietta 18:05
Penner, Andy Fairport 18:11
Razavi, Mike Fairport 18:14
Wolf, Josh Fairport 18:18
Lauria, Mike Athena 18:21
Staveski, Adam Fairport 18:26
Larkin, Mike Rush Henrietta 18:28
Aiken, Pat Rush Henrietta 18:29
Greiner, Johnny Rush Henrietta 18:35
Shenal, Patrick Rush Henrietta 18:37
Koenig, Ethan Athena 18:40
Pease, Keith Athena 18:42
Ceiply, Mike Fairport 18:58
Miller, Jon Rush Henrietta 19:02
Hale, Zack Athena 19:02
Grouse, David Fairport 19:03

McQuaid Invitational

2011-09-30T00:49:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I posted the link to the McQuaid Invitational site. This is the 47th edition of this storied invitational, meaning it was first run in 1965. I was actually a competitor in 1979 and 1980, and have attended over 25 of the editions. I still get excited as the day approaches.

Our race times are as follows:
1:03pm - Sophomore Boys (this race includes all of our 9th graders as well)
2:26pm - Varsity "B" GIrls
(2:50pm - the Spry Boys)
(3:26pm - the Spry Girls)
3:38pm - Varsity Boys
3:58pm - Varsity Girls
4:45pm - Varsity "B" Boys

Also, do not miss the race at 4:22pm - it is the large school seeded Varsity Boys race and will feature a battle between Shaker (ranked #3 in the state) and R-H (ranked #4 in the state). They were ranked 1-2 in the state in the preseason, but an injury set Shaker back and R-H seems to be biding their time for now, and not putting their best feet forward, so F-M and Arlington have slipped by. It will be interesting to see what kind of statement the teams make this weekend.

With the rain we've had, and more to come, the course will not be as blazing fast as usual, but in XC times don't really matter. So, this just makes it more of a test of who is toughest!

I haven't had time to do detailed analyses of the races, but I will mention a few facts, starting with the girls varsity race. The very top teams in the state are not making the trip, or are in the AA (medium school race) - #4 Burnt Hills, #6 East Aurora, #15 Mendon. But, of the 18 teams in the "seeded" girls race, 9 were mentioned in the Tullyrunners preseason rankings, including:
#5 Canandaigua (solid lineup)
#13 HF-L (3 elite runners)
#14 Penfield (Katie / Leila is one of the best combos in the state)
#19 Fairport (defending champs, but Ashton Hughes not her former self, so far this year)
#23 Ithaca (3rd in this race last year)
#24 Rush-Henrietta (seriously under-ranked, especially in invitational scoring)
#26 Warwick Valley
#33 Clarence (ranked #1 in Section VI - Buffalo area - large schools, again)
#38 Elmira

The 9 not mentioned include:
Hilton (#7 in Section V)
Frontier (#3 in Section VI)
Orchard Park (#5 in Section VI)
Williamsville North (#7 in Section VI)
Corning - frequent state meet attendee from Section IV (Binghamton area)
Union-Endicott
Liverpool (4th last year) frequent runner-up to F-M in Section III (Syracuse area)
West Genesee (8th in this race last year)
Webster Schroeder

Can we prove ourselves top 10 material in a field this deep?

Our boys will be in the "unseeded" race with 21 teams. Clarence, ranked #12 in the state for Class A, is dropping down to win in the small pond. In fact, it seems that all of Section 6 is afraid of the large seeded race. Here is what we have for their large schools: #1 Starpoint - seeded Medium race; #2 Clarence; #3 Lockport, #4 Canisius and #5 Lancaster, #7 Frontier - all in our race. And the "ranked" local teams in our race include #7 Hilton, #9 Fairport and HM Irondequoit (punished for "loafing" the Cougar Invite) and Penfield.

It will be interesting to see how we rate against this field. Many of the teams in the race will be right at our level.

Our other races will be very large (3 of the 4 largest races of the day), with the following numbers entered:
Sophomore Boys - 452
Varsity B GIrls - 454
Varsity B Boys - 479

Week 3 Recap

2011-09-28T12:22:00.000-04:00

But first a quick link to the McQuaid Invitational website, which includes the race schedule. I'll write more about McQuaid later this week.

Mendon East
In the boys race, Brighton's Will Ronchetti spent a lot of time looking over his shoulder as he led much of the race. Sure enough, he was overtaken by Mendon's Will Burton and Jack Wesley and Mendon came away with a 26-29 win. Irondequoit was out quickly, but faded badly and lost to Mendon, 19-38 and Brighton, 20-35. Schroeder won the mano-a-mano battles with Penfield's first and second runners, but lost the other three and the meet, 27-28.

Mendon's depth overcame Penfield's outstanding front-runners. Katie Lembo and Leila Mantilla ran about 25 seconds faster than a week ago to win easily and post the third and fourth fastest League Meet times on Mendon East behind Shaylyn Tuite and ... Shaylyn Tuite. Val and Amanda missed the top 25 listing by just 3 and 5 seconds, respectively. The biggest surprise was the Schroeder girls forcing Mendon to score 27 points and only falling 25-30 to Penfield.

Black Creek
Perhaps the slowest boys race of the year - only 7 or 8 runners broke 20 minutes. Last week 9 girls broke 20 at Webster Park! Olympia went 1-2 for the win. Brockport, with their 5th man running 22:21, even lost to East Rochester.

The girls race was quite dull, with only 2 of the 5 schools fielding complete teams of 5 runners.

Center Park
MJ Erb ran 26 seconds faster than a week ago on the same course, to finish in a Course Record 16:30, and Victor used a 1-2 finish to sweep the meet, including 24-31 over Fairport. Fairport's top 5 were only 21 seconds apart.

Meghan McCormick coasted to the 3rd fastest time on the course, and was followed by sister Kate and Kennedy Jensen, to lead Canandaigua to four easy victories. Erin Sedita continued to be Fairport's best runner, ahead of Ashton Hughes (but over a minute behind the winner), and their 1-5 spread was only 1:37, to put them well ahead of Victor.

Harris Whalen
The D&C's ignorance was on full display this morning, playing up Sutherland's win over R-H, despite the fact that R-H clearly coasted through the meet, presumably maximizing their chances against Shaker at the McQuaid Invitational on Saturday. That should be a great race! The Thomas boys continue to look great for a bunch of youngsters - their top 7 included 5 sophomores, a frosh and a rookie - and they took care of Hilton, 25-32.

The R-H girls also backed off, allowing the O'Hara girls from Thomas to go 1-2, but R-H still prevailed, 26-32. Thomas had no trouble handling Hilton and Sutherland.

Mendon West
The HF-L boys had an easy day, with sizable wins over Athena, Churchville and Gates.

The HF-L girls also cruised, their top 3 allowing Churchville's Karli O'Neill to beat them by about a minute. No close scores to be seen here.

Scouting Report - Week 3

2011-09-26T22:31:00.000-04:00

Here are our top opponents for tomorrow's meet...

Boys

Burton, Will Mendon 17:17
Wesley, Jack Mendon 17:36
VanVleck, Matt Mendon 17:40
Mullen, Andrew Brighton 17:46
Stahl, Eric Brighton 17:56
Tarduno, Matthew Brighton 17:56
Ronchetti, Will Brighton 17:58
Pavia, Corey Mendon 18:01
Koss, Nick Irondequoit 18:03
Bigenwald, Eric Irondequoit 18:03
Moran, Mitch Penfield 18:04
Green, Connor Mendon 18:13
Wilczewski, James Irondequoit 18:18
Dyrland, Josh Irondequoit 18:22
Young, Robert Mendon 18:23
Simpson, Zachary Brighton 18:26
Kozlowski, Mike Penfield 18:30
Paige, Aaron Irondequoit 18:39
Muzdakis, Zachary Irondequoit 18:43
Wagner, Ray Irondequoit 18:44
Tassone, Brendan Penfield 18:44
Coons, Sam Brighton 18:46
Crandell, Alex Penfield 18:47
Ryan, Neil Brighton 18:48

Girls

Mantilla, Leila Penfield 19:12
Lembo, Katie Penfield 19:25
Tate, Tiffany Irondequoit 20:28
Roncone, Krista Mendon 20:32
Hallock, Allison Mendon 20:35
Tuttle, Georgia Irondequoit 20:51
Wagner, Robin Brighton 21:09
Schnaufer, Illana Penfield 21:27
Heyer, Lindsay Penfield 21:28
Ryan, Kylie Mendon 21:30
Bourcy, Abby Penfield 21:45
Yancey, Colleen Mendon 21:46
Tuite, Kari Mendon 21:58
Nitschke, Margot Mendon 22:11
Pinker, Talia Brighton 22:14
Nadeau, Sarah Irondequoit 22:21
Wagner, Clara Irondequoit 22:23
Pieper, Maddy Mendon 22:27
Novak, Allie Mendon 22:27
Olson, Tricia Brighton 22:28
Swetman, Brenna Mendon 22:34
Zeccola, Amanda Mendon 22:35
Cok, Sarah Penfield 22:39
Schildkraut, Melis Penfield 22:55
Fahrenholz, Tori Penfield 22:57

How 'bout Them Bills!

2011-09-26T14:57:00.003-04:00

Still savoring yesterday's win!

Results from the Cougar Invite are available here. Check the "groupI" and "var-b" files

Tomorrow's meet is at Mendon Ponds Park (East Course) against Brighton, Irondequoit, Mendon and Penfield, making for a very challenging meet. The Boys race first, at 4:30, for the last time this season. This week the modified teams run between the high school races, so the Girls are likely to run just a bit later than last week.

I do not have the Scouting Report available yet, but it should be posted later tonight.

For anyone who hasn't been to Mendon East (we did not run there last year, for the first time since it was made the County Meet course), the parking is at the Beach parking lot, and the race starts and finishes next to the parking lot entry road. Please do not park along the entry or exit roads as the race course crosses those roads.

Directions from Schroeder are included here:

View Larger Map

Cougar Invitational

2011-09-23T10:28:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow we will be heading over to Genesee Community College for the Cougar Invitational. The course is the same course that is used for Sectionals. The schedule is as follows (Schroeder races are bolded):

10:00 Girls Group III
10:30 Boys Group III
11:00 Girls Varsity B
11:30 Boys Varsity B
12:00 Modified Girls
12:15 Modified Boys
12:30 Girls Group II
1:00 Boys Group II
1:30 Girls Group I
2:00 Boys Group I

Here is a map of the course

Complete information is available in this PDF file.

Here are the directions from Schroeder:

View Larger Map

Week 2 Recap

2011-09-21T10:50:00.000-04:00

Webster Park

Our boys performed as expected with easy wins over Brockport and Canandaigua and lopsided losses to Thomas and HF-L. Thomas took advantage of HF-L missing one runner and backing off after Saturday's big performance that vaulted them to #3 in the State Rankings for Class B, and beat them, 26-30, with three runners under 17 minutes.

Our girls also split their meets, as expected; however, we only lost to HF-L by the score of 27-30, as their big 3 finished ahead of Alaina and they slipped 4-5-6 in ahead of Natalie and Sarah. And Thomas came a little closer than expected. Canadaigua sat some girls and HF-L backed off from full speed, but the net result was that Canandaigua still won, with their decided dual meet advantage over HF-L (although they finished just behind HF-L in the VVS merge, they would have won a dual meet, 25-30). Val and Amanda earned spots #9 and 11 on the "Internet Era" all-time best at Webster Park. Meghan McCormick's winning time was the 4th best.

Black Creek

Irondequoit showed their strength by out-Sutherlanding Sutherland. Their top 5 finished within 24 seconds of their winner, Eric Bigenwald. Sutherland, ranked 15th in Class B, could only manage 3 runners in that gap. Fairport also managed to edge Sutherland, 27-28, by sneaking 3-4-5 in ahead of Sutherland's 4th. So, they seem to be better than expected.

In the girls race, Irondequoit's new star, Tiffany Tate, won the race over Georgia Tuttle, with both of them breaking Brianna Deming's course record, but Irondequoit couldn't get a 5th girl to the line for another 3:18, allowing Fairport to displace for a 28-29 victory and go 4-0 on the day. Irondequoit's 1-2 punch was also not enough to beat Sutherland.

Center Park

Victor's boys set the tone of the day, with a 27-28 win over Brighton. Their 5th man beat Brighton's 5th by just 2 seconds, as Brighton and Victor combined to take 16 of the top 20 places. MJ Erb's win was the 5th best time on this course.

And the Victor girls followed up with a 27-30 win. Although Brighton went 2-3-4, Victor grabbed the next 5 spots to get the win.

Mendon East

R-H took the day off after Saturday's race, only running Mickey Burke from among their leaders, but still won easily. Travis Jordon of Gates got the individual win.

The girls race was similar to Saturday's merge results between R-H and Penfield, although in slower times, as both teams seemed to leave something in the tank (or were too spent from Saturday). R-H bunched 5 ahead of Penfield's 3rd, for a 25-32 win. Katie Lembo and Leila Mantilla tied for the win in a respectable 19:46, which is still well off of their capabilities.

Northampton Park

Hilton ran well up front in the boys race, but they could not match Mendon's depth and Mendon won 26-31, to sweep the day.

In the girls race, Allison Hallock and Krista Roncone outkicked Hilton's Haley Keene, to give Mendon a comfortable 21-36 win over Mendon.

Scouting Report - Week 2

2011-09-19T22:57:00.000-04:00

We are hosting this week's League Meet at Webster Park. Our guests will include our cross-town friends from Thomas, plus Brockport, Canandaigua and Honeoye Falls-Lima. The boys will be racing first, at 4:30. HF-L and Canandaigua ran at VVS on Saturday, with very different performances. HF-L showed they are much stronger than expected, and placed 7th in the overall merge. Cooper Roach led them with the 7th fastest time of the day, and although there is a large gap to #2, the next 4 runners finished within 42 seconds of each other. Meanwhile, Canandaigua was 53rd, with just 2 runners under 19:30. Brockport also lacks depth, but Thomas is incredibly deep, with many youngsters among their leaders.

The top opponents (with time from VVS, if applicable, plus predicted time for Webster Park):

Name Team VVS Pred
Roach, Cooper HF-L 16.25 16:21
Andrievsky, Sasha Thomas 16:46
Jamele, Geoff Brockport 17:05
Johnson, Keith Thomas 17:08
Trombley, Nick Canandaigua 18.08 17:10
Brunett, Joe HF-L 17.13 17:12
Beaujon, Allen Canandaigua 17.87 17:21
Paganelli, JT HF-L 17.58 17:26
Douglas, Langton HF-L 17.52 17:27
Goldstein, Josh Thomas 17:33
Lawlor, John HF-L 18.78 17:36
Leo, Patrick HF-L 17.83 17:37
Matthews, Cole HF-L 17:49
Witt, Kevin Thomas 17:51
Loce, Matt Thomas 17:58
Baller, Mitchell Thomas 18:06
Peffley, Chris Thomas 18:11
Smith, Austin T. Thomas 18:17
Whitman, Ben Thomas 18:20
Smith, Trevor Thomas 18:22
Sykora, Josh Brockport 18:23
Vestri, Justin Thomas 18:37
Garvey, Evan Thomas 18:38
Shuler, Colby HF-L 18.97 18:53
Johnston, Joe Thomas 18:53
Frank, Austin Thomas 18:53
Wall, David Canandaigua 19.58 18:55

The girls race could be quire interesting. HF-L had an outstanding race at VVS, to grab 4th in the merge, while exacting revenge on Penfield, whose 8th and 9th graders did not seem ready for the larger race, leading to 13th in the merge, despite fine runs by Katie Lembo and Leila Mantilla. Canandaigua was right behind, 5th in the merge. They have a big advantage over HF-L in a dual meet, as they are capable of going 1-2-3 to end it. Brockport has an outstanding frosh, who should be in the mix, but they have mo depth. The Thomas girls should make things interesting for us.

Here are the expected leaders of the girls race:

McCormick, Meghan Canandaigua 19.13 18:22
Albrecht, Autumn Brockport 18:49
Cole, Hannah HF-L 19.93 18:52
Engel, Katie HF-L 19.82 19:05
Steinke, Ruth HF-L 20.00 19:12
Jensen, Kennedy Canandaigua 19.30 19:24
McCormick, Kate Canandaigua 19.58 19:28
D'Amore, Kendall Canandaigua 21.15 19:31
Williams, Jenna HF-L 20.20 19:44
Roose, Serena Brockport 19:56
Miller, Hayley Canandaigua 21.47 20:02
D'Amore, Lauren Canandaigua 20.92 20:07
Douglas, Riley HF-L 20.90 20:09
Mack, Kellie Canandaigua 24.07 20:15
O'Hara, Shannon Thomas 20:20
O'Hara, Eileen Thomas 20:47
Garbinski, Dana Canandaigua 21.58 20:51
Adams, Laura Thomas 20:59
Held, Emmy HF-L 22.07 21:04
Cole, Ari HF-L 21.30 21:05
Malmberg, Cecilia Thomas 21:15
Hanson, Jenna HF-L 22.23 21:19
Crocetti, Noelle Thomas 21:21
Hulme, Mackenzie Canandaigua 22.22 21:33
Simpson, Tori HF-L 22.95 21:35
Mevorach, Martha HF-L 21.97 21:36

Hardware for the Girls!

2011-09-19T11:35:00.000-04:00

An excellent performance by the Varsity squads that traveled to the VVS Invitational over the weekend! The girls raced first and put on a great showing, led by Val and Amanda coming from behind to finish 1-3. Alaina and Sarah also picked their way through the crowd during the last 2+ miles. Katie held on as our 5th girl, to secure a third-place finish for the team, behind a surprisingly tight R-H pack and highly-regarded Guilderland team.

The boys came close to repeating that performance in their race, with an excellent team effort. Will and Justin worked together for much of the race to finish 17 and 22. Alex and John were the next mini-pack and worked their way up to 33 and 35. The next pairing was Tristan and Ethan; Tristan made a late surge to place 43rd and the team grabbed 4th place!

Another exciting accomplishment by the girls was capturing 21st place in the merge of all 7 races from the day. That's a great performance, considering there were 20 teams competing that were ranked in the pre-season rankings on Tullyrunners.

Complete results from the day are available at Leone Timing.

VVS Invitational

2011-09-15T22:53:00.000-04:00

So, our varsity squads are off to the Vernon-Verona-Sherrill Invitational this weekend. Their web site is here. The first race is at 9am, but we are scheduled to run in Races #7 - the girls at 2:50 and the boys at 4:35.

Brief scouting report:

Girls
Guilderland was number 7 in the Tullyrunners preseason ranking and should win the race handily. Rush-Henrietta, at #24, is the only other ranked team in our race, but it looks like Broadalbin-Perth is capable of beating R-H. Then we have Canton and Wayland-Cohocton just slightly ahead of us. Fonda-Fultonville seems to be the next best team.

For individuals, there seems to be a first tier of about 7 girls, 2 each from R-H, Guilderland and Schroeder, plus one from Canton.

Boys
Rush-Henrietta should win our race easily. Corning is clearly the second best team in the race. I expect Broadalbin-Perth to finish ahead of Fonda-Fultonville for third. We are just behind the next three teams: Seton Catholic, Jordan-Elbridge and Berlin. It doesn't look like any other teams should be close.

The individual race should be dominated by R-H, of course, with runners from Eldred and Broadalbin-Perth in the mix. Corning's lead pack is just behind that group. I would expect that a top 25 finish would be an excellent performance for our top boys, with places in the 40s a good finish for the next group.

Week 1 Recap

2011-09-14T23:04:00.000-04:00

An exciting week around the league to open up the season!

Basil Marella
Our girls and boys both swept the day, for just the second time since the Webster schools split. The girls grabbed 7 of the top 9 spots to go 3-0. Val tied for the 25th best time since 2005, when record-keeping began. Unfortunately, it seems that her last name prevents her from being displayed on this page. It appears that ties are broken by alphabetic order of the last name!

The boys found themselves in the Battle of Greece, with the three Greece teams really going after bragging rights. Each of their three meets was decided by 27-29 or 27-30. Meanwhile, our boys won by scores of 22-37, 22-38 and 22-39.

Harris Whalen
Probably the most exciting girls race of the day was the Penfield vs HFL. Leila Mantilla ran the second best recorded time on the course, behind only Shaylyn Tuite, and Ketie Lembo was 2nd. That was just enough to hold off HFL's pack for a 27-29 win, despite a 3:51 gap for 1 thru 5.

In the boys race, Sutherland was favored, but was not at full strength, so Victor recorded a 25-32 win over them and HFL edged them, 28-28, as their 6th man edged Sutherland's 5th by just 4 seconds.

Mendon West
This was the featured girls match-up of the day, with Canandaigua, Mendon and RH competing. Canandaigua looked quite tough, taking 3 of the first 4 places and winning easily. Mendon was strong enough to overcome RH's 39-second 1-5 gap to win, 27-29.

The boys race was strictly a two-team affair, with Mendon and RH each taking 6 of the top 12 places. RH stayed just a step ahead all the way down the line, for a comfortable 23-32 win.

Parma Park
The Fairport girls had underwhelming wins over Brighton and Hilton. That may just be a sign that Brighton and Hilton may be closer to our heels than expected.

The Hilton boys lost another close meet on their home course as Fairport sneaked in a 6th runner to win, 28-28. Brighton easily defeated both of those teams, as expected, despite Will Ronchetti not being the fastest sophomore out there (Hilton's Tyler Ranke won in 17:26).

Seneca Park
Thomas could not take advantage of Irondequoit only placing 4 girls in the top 24, while they had 11, and lost by a 28-29 score.

The boys also had an exciting race, with sophomores named Josh from Thomas and Irondequoit (Goldstein and Dyrland) went 1-2. In this race, it was Thomas that couldn't get a 5th runner in quick enough with Matt Loce and Ben Whitman coming in just behind Irondequoit's 4-5-6 pack to enable Irondequoit to pull out a 28-28 win.

Seniors

2011-09-13T08:16:00.000-04:00

As you begin your last high school Cross Country season, this article that I found in the Buffalo News provides some thought-starters.

I hope that each of you has a very successful season, as viewed in the many unique ways that you define success.

Tomorrow's Meet

2011-09-12T13:00:00.000-04:00

Our league schedule gets underway tomorrow, as we open at Basil Marella Park against three Greece schools: Arcadia, Odyssey and Olympia. The boys race is scheduled to start at 4:30, with the girls race to follow (probably by 5:15).

Based on returning runners from the four schools involved, our chances of sweeping the meet are quite good. Last year, the Schroeder boys and girls did that for the first time since the Webster schools were split, so it is a major accomplishment if we can pull it off. Here are the top returning runners from the other schools, along with predicted times:

Boys
Northrup, Brian 10 Arcadia 17:50
Tshibangu, Raphael 11 Olympia 18:17
Freudenvoll, Dominic 11 Arcadia 18:25
Custozzo, Steven 10 Odyssey 18:44
Mangiafesto, Jeff 12 Odyssey 18:52
Greene, Nick 12 Arcadia 19:23
Seyboth, Scott 12 Olympia 19:30
Mesolella, Brian 12 Olympia 19:59
Kishlar, David 12 Olympia 20:10
Ostrander, Mike 12 Arcadia 20:20
Anderson, James 10 Odyssey 20:43
Burgos, Roberto 12 Olympia 20:50

Girls
Swertfeger, Sarah 12 Olympia 20:00
Bubie, Nicole 12 Odyssey 21:43
Erbelding, Kathryn 12 Olympia 21:53
Herrick, Zoe 10 Odyssey 22:33
Greico, Mariah 10 Odyssey 23:31
Eckert, Julie 12 Odyssey 25:33
Custozzo, Amanda 12 Odyssey 25:47
Lezette, Victoria 10 Arcadia 25:56

Here are directions to the park (note the start/finish lines are in the northwest part of the park):

View Larger Map

Back From the Marathon

2011-09-11T21:36:00.000-04:00

Since I am back from the Lehigh Valley Marathon, I can finally get around to posting here. The team's trip to the "Dash in the Dark", was both fun and successful. While last year saw the boys pull off an exciting come-from-behind victory, this year saw the girls get the win over Mendon, using a different strategy: Amanda went first and opened up a lead over Mendon's top two runners. Val extended the lead to just over a minute, despite being all alone, setting things up for Alaina, who did not have to worry about Shaylyn Tuite running for Mendon. Alaina ran a fine race, splitting 6:49, then 6:39, for a 33-second win!

While our top boys did not match up with last year's top guys, as a team the performance was excellent, as 13 of the top 25 performances are from this year's race. Will leading off with a 10:52 showed that he is ready to race. The biggest surprise was Kevin pulling off an 11:48 in the Blue race, which was our 6th fastest time of the day.

Complete results are available at YellowJacket racing - choose Results, then 2011, then scroll as needed to the Sept 9th date.

For the marathon story, you can check out my Attackpoint log for today.

Coming tomorrow: a preview of our first league meet, scheduled for Tuesday at Basil Marella Park in Greece.

Back To School

2011-09-06T12:14:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is the day that students have been dreading - back to school in Webster. Remember, it could have been worse: Penfield, among others started today.

Today is our last practice at Schroeder until the end of the year, and it is our last 5:30 practice, so dinner can be moved back to a more normal time! After practices at Webster Park on Wednesday and Thursday, we will be off to Dash in the Dark on Friday. Complete information (including a nice video from last year) is available here, but here is the quick version:

It is held at Oakfield-Alabama High School. It is a different kind of XC race in that it is a relay format, with 3 runners each completing 2 miles (twice around a 1-mile loop). We will be entering 2 or 3 teams in each of the "Gold" races, while the remaining teams will be entered in the "Blue" races.

6pm - Boys Blue Race
7:05pm - Girls Blue Race
8:10pm - Boys Gold Race
9:05pm - Girls Gold Race

I hope this works - Directions from Schroeder:

View Larger Map

Gold Sweeps

2011-09-03T23:21:00.000-04:00

The Gold team managed to win all 3 races on Friday at the 6th annual Blue & Gold meet. Some of the highlights of the meet included Justin Reed becoming only the second underclassman to win the race - not since Nate won as a sophomore in 2007 has that happened. On the girls side, Val Palermo, became the only person to win twice. She and Amanda Paratore were over a minute under the meet record.

Full Results follow...

Boys
Reed, Justin 18:14
Meritt, Alex 18:20
Cannan, Tristan 18:29
Burgin, Will 18:35
Killigrew, John 18:44
Mallery, Peter 19:41
Eberth, Jake 20:04
Killigrew, Kevin 20:37
LaLoggia, Mike 20:41
Dana, Steven 21:05
Doherty, Patrick 21:14
Devries, Jacob 21:22
Infantino, Adam 21:39
McBride, Raymond 21:45
Dyson, Jacob 22:20
Ash, David 22:38
Crawford, Alex 22:49
Lipari, Philip 23:15
Buttaggi, Brian 23:27
Fargo, Noah 23:30
Paratore, Aaron 23:40
Wentling, Desmond 23:57
Terrana-Prince, Justin 24:13
Shaffer, Justin 24:13
Terrigino, Nick 28:25
Hamouda, Amir 28:26

Girls

Palermo, Val 19:41
Paratore, Amanda 19:47
Bailey, Alaina 22:30
Fitzgerald, Natalie 23:04
Wiseman, Julia 23:34
Edwards, Katie 24:43
Yursaitis, Sarah 25:00
Blose, Ashlynn 25:51
Ludington, Claire 26:06
Conrow, Megan 26:53
Conrow, Amber 27:39
Clemens, Isabella 32:32
Cekuta, Kara 33:11
Wehrle, Jenn 37:33

Blue & Gold Tomorrow

2011-09-01T15:48:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow everyone gets to try out the racing shoes as we contest the 6th annual Blue & Gold intrasquad meet. The teams are being put together - watch for an e-mail telling you what color to wear tomorrow!

Practice starts at 5:30pm. I would expect the race to begin very close to 6:30pm.

World Track & Field Championships

2011-08-31T12:52:00.000-04:00

Today is actually a rest day, but this week is the World Track & Field Championships in Daegu, South Korea. The meet opened last Saturday with the women's marathon that saw the Kenyans sweep the medals, and it continues through Sunday when the men's marathon will be contested, along with the men's 5K and the women's 800.

A complete schedule of events is available here.

Results are available online, in near real-time.

With South Korea being 13 hours ahead of us, I don't expect TV coverage to be particularly useful, but NBC will be showing something on Saturday and Sunday.

Busy Week

2011-08-29T16:01:00.000-04:00

We have a busy week ahead of us:
- today we are at Ellison Park
- tomorrow's practice starts at 4pm (at Schroeder), before WABO night
- Wednesday is at Webster Park
- Thursday is back at Schroeder
- Friday is the Blue & Gold meet!
- And Saturday is a special run where we will start at Webster Park, but finish up at North Ponds.

I'll dig up the historical Blue and Gold results, so you'll be able to compare your performance to all the others over the past several years. For now, here is the link to last year's results.

Kudos

2011-08-26T09:14:00.000-04:00

I never got around to congratulating the Schroeder alumni, for their dominating performance at the Dirt Cheap Trail Run at Webster Park last week. They won a dual meet against the rest of the field, 26-31. It was mostly the Class of 2011 (how they'll be missed!), who were led by AJ (2nd overall) and Geoff (4th), followed by Adrian, John, Joe and Justin, sweeping 8th-11th. Nate ('10) helped out with a 3rd place finish.

Ethan, placing 12th, barely behind Justin officially, in a controversial "chip" vs torso debate, was the only current runner to match the alumni. Justin and Tristan were 36th and 37th, after they jogged behind Coach Lyons for the first half of the race. Steve was 45th, Zach was 57th, and Adam coasted to 82nd.

On the women's side, no current runners participated, but two alumnae were spotted, with Chelsea ('08) placing 17th for women (first for F20-24) and Emily Duke ('07) grabbing 37th.

At least 4 WDR parents participated, with Coach Lyons placing 1st among M45-49, the Mallerys making fine showings, placing 67th and 20th (3rd in her age group) among their respective genders. And Geoff's mom was 28th among women, and 2nd in her age group.

Complete results are available at Yellow Jacket Racing (go to Results, 2011 and scroll to August 17th). The current direct link is here.

Today's Routes

2011-08-25T13:58:00.000-04:00

From the reports that I received, nice work at Ellison Park yesterday! Sorry I couldn't be there to share the fun. Here are today's routes, in case anyone wants a preview:

White - 3.16 miles

Yellow/Orange/Purple/Green - 4.0 miles

Red/Blue - 6.3 miles

Today's Routes

2011-08-23T21:27:00.000-04:00

For posterity, here are the routes we ran (or were supposed to run ;-) ) from Schroeder today.

7.34 miles for Blue and Red

6.21 miles for Green and Purple

5 miles for Orange and Yellow

4 miles for White

Practice Schedule Available

2011-08-22T12:40:00.000-04:00

The "Current Practice Schedule" on the left-hand side of this page (first link in the "Check It Out" section) has been updated with this fall's schedule. Please pay close attention to the locations of practices before school starts, as they move around a bit (yes, there is a method to our madness).

With two practices under our belt - a couple of quick observations:
- more runners are more prepared than in previous years (camp and captains' practice attendance has paid off)
- the large number of no-shows was disappointing (the number of soccer and football no-shows was pretty close to zero)

We started off with a couple of easy days - now the fun begins!

Preseason Rankings - Girls

2011-08-12T08:59:00.000-04:00

Here is a link to the Tullyrunners preview of the girls teams in NY. Six Monroe County teams are ranked in the top 24, led by Canandaigua at #5 (just ahead of East Aurora). They are followed by a tight pack at 13-14-15, consisting of HF-L, Penfield and Mendon. Not far back are Fairport at 19 and R-H at 24.

How does my computer rate the locals? In a pretty similar fashion, although it sticks Fairport in between HF-L and Penfield. As always, the girls preseason ranking means even less than the boys, since it is much more likely that a young girl (or a former soccer player) can step in and immediately help a girls team. So, expect to see many changes to this list after a couple of weeks of the season play out.

But in the meantime, here is the complete list of Monroe County teams, based solely on girls returning from last year, and the actual performances last year. Unlike Tullyrunners, I have not gone through and adjusted anything for track performances, etc.

Canandaigua 75
Honeoye Falls Lima 119
Fairport 122
Penfield 123
Mendon 129
Rush Henrietta 145
Schroeder 197
Sutherland 201
Victor 212
Irondequoit 282
Hilton 283
Brighton 292
Churchville Chili 361
Thomas 362
Athena 363
Brockport 447
Odyssey 560
Batavia 627
Gates Chili 649
East Rochester 663
Arcadia 705
Olympia inc
East Irondequoit inc
Spencerport inc

Yes, you read that correctly, Schroeder is actually ranked 7th in Monroe County, behind only the six teams that made Tullyrunners' top 24! But note that Sutherland and Victor are right behind, with significant advantages at the 4-5 spots, where the points can swing wildly.

Preseason Rankings - Boys

2011-08-08T23:58:00.000-04:00

Tullyrunners.com have posted their preseason Boys XC rankings for the upcoming season, so I decided to toss the 2010 seniors out of last year's rankings and see what the computer had to say about the upcoming season in Monroe County. The results are neither surprising nor inconsistent with Tullyrunners.

Sadly, the computer has our boys ranked 13th in Monroe County, so we have some work to do. Teams ahead of us include Thomas, Fairport and even Batavia (4-19 in 2010).

At the top of the list is, of course, Rush-Henrietta. This is the year they've been waiting for, with Kozyra, Colby Burke, Sweeney, Raymond and Aiken all being seniors, to go along with the defending Section V Class AA Champ, Mickey Burke. The computer says they are capable of scoring 29 points in an invitational against the whole county!

The complete list:

Rush Henrietta 29 (2nd on Tully, 2nd in Class A)
Brighton 101 (15th, 6th in B)
Mendon 130 (17th, 5th in B)
Irondequoit 139 (23rd, 14th in A)
Sutherland 162 (26th, 8th in B)
Victor 181
Fairport 230
Honeoye Falls Lima 243 (15th in B)
Batavia 310
Thomas 313
Penfield 313
Hilton 337
Schroeder 340
Gates Chili 343
Athena 385
Churchville Chili 455
Canandaigua 478
Brockport 498
Arcadia 516
Spencerport 552
Olympia 596
East Rochester 609
Odyssey 634
East Irondequoit 770

I'll have the Girls preview with my next posting.

House Arrest?

2011-07-29T14:54:00.000-04:00

School budget woes have caused some transportation policy changes in Webster. We can no longer take buses to meets outside of Section V, and we had three such meets scheduled this year: the State Meet preview race at VVS, the East Aurora Invitational and the Bulldog Invitational at Alden.

I won't go into the strangeness of allowing a 2 hour trip to Addison in Section V, but not allowing a 70 minute trip to Alden.

However, it looks like the restriction on coaches and parents taking athletes to meets will be lifted. So, we will be looking to see if a "car pool" approach may work, to keep some of these meets on our schedule.

No End In Sight

2011-07-26T14:10:00.000-04:00

It looks like, while the extreme heat from last week has subsided, the hot weather will stick with us for a while. And, as an added "bonus", we may actually see some rain (which is good) in the form of thunderstorms (which is bad). These facts provide a great opportunity for a couple of reminders.

First, stay hydrated - all day, every day. The "camel strategy" does not work very well for runners!

Second, our running camp follows the national federation of high school sports guidelines, so activities will be halted for a minimum of 30 minutes if we have lightning or thunder during camp. We are fortunate in that Webster Park has a number of shelters to ride out a storm, if necessary. Do avoid the open fields and tall trees.

It's So Hot...

2011-07-22T16:16:00.001-04:00

...that I discovered our hot water heater is actually cooling the water!

Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but those brave souls that attended XC Camp yesterday found that the plentiful water pumps at Webster Park can really come in handy. With the temperature north of 95 degrees, caution was the order of the day. The runners were reminded that in conditions like this, which can even occur during the early part of XC season (as opposed to the low 30s that can be experienced at the end of the year!), hydration is something to think about all day long.

With the heat expected to remain high (but not back above 95) for the next few days, running early in the morning is the best option, followed by re-hydrating all day long. Also make sure that any runs of over 30 minutes include a place to stop for water.

Stay cool, y'all!

1, 2, 3, 4, 6

2011-07-21T14:12:00.000-04:00

Webster Schroeder XC alumni swept the top 4 spots in the 19 & under category at last night's Dirt Cheap Trail race at Mendon Ponds Park. Geoff Kelly, Nate Lyons, John Wiseman and Joe Makowski led the youngest age group in the challenging run. And current runner, Zach Lyons grabbed 6th.

Geoff and Nate actually finished 2-3 overall in the race, which featured a "time trial" or staggered start, to allow the runners to safely start the race heading down the stairs towards the Devil's Bathtub. Nate was the very last starter, of the 239 finishers, and spent the whole race passing people as each runner had started 5 seconds apart.

Complete results are available here.

Excuses, Excuses

2011-07-19T09:02:00.000-04:00

Man, you go away on vacation for a week and it means that you have to work extra hard the week before and the week after, just to avoid falling way behind. On top of that, you come back to work and have to deliver a release in two weeks, on a newly assigned project. No wonder I haven't had time to breathe, let alone post here!

Well, anyway, XC Camp got underway last week, with two productive sessions. It looks like there were a lot of vacations going on, as more than one-third of the registered campers were no-shows. That was the bad news. The good news is that attendance at the Captain's practices has been extraordinary! Mondays at Ellison Wetlands seems to be the run that everyone loves to hate: bugs and hills. Wednesdays have been at North Ponds (does the world get much flatter than that area?), while Saturdays have been the longer runs in good old Webster Park.

Five more weeks of camp will take us right to the start of the season, when things will really happen quickly.

Oh - and one reminder: tomorrow night is the next edition of the Dirt Cheap Trail Series, this one at Mendon Ponds Park. The past two years this has been conducted via an "interval start", 5 seconds apart, as the course starts off down the stairs into the Devil's Bathtub. It is rumored that Nate Lyons, just back from Poland and Finland, will be making an appearance.

Captain's Practices

2011-06-22T11:38:00.000-04:00

The captains of next year's XC team met last night, and decided on days, times and locations for Captains' practices. They will not all be at Webster Park! They will start on Monday (June 27th), so expect an announcement very soon.

And I know you will all be disappointed, but it looks like the weight room hours will be cut out this summer. But have no fear, we will add extra strengthening exercises during XC camp!

Speaking of camp, get out there and register at the Webster Parks and Rec department. It can even be done online at this site. The cost is only $30, not the higher amount listed in the program guide. The camp is on Tuesdays and Thursdays from July 12th thru August 18th (then practice starts on the 19th).

First Day of Summer

2011-06-21T09:44:00.000-04:00

For those of you that have been "resting" since track ended, what better day to start Summer Running than the first day of summer? Today is June 21st; the first day of practice is August 19th. That means there are 59 days until practice starts. Make a goal today! Here are some suggestions:

1) A good, old-fashioned mileage goal. For a brand-new high school runner, that may be 175 miles or 200 miles. For a more experienced runner, that may be 350 miles (I would recommend the top goal would be 400 miles).

2) A goal to run a particular number of days: 50 is not only a nice, round number, but it happens to allow one day off per week between now and the first practice. I think all returning runners could have that as a goal. New runners may want to shoot for 40 (allowing a second day off per week).

2a) Your goal could be to complete a set number of runs, rather than days. This is useful for those of you that may want to do an occasional double (a future topic that will be covered). 59 runs in 59 days is achievable for returning runners.

3) A goal to have a particular weekly mileage by the end of the summer. New runners could aim for a 30-mile week; veterans could shoot for 50 (even 60, if you are prepared). Note that you cannot make a big jump to hit the final total - my recommendation is to increase mileage by no more than 10% per week, and to increase no more than 3 weeks in a row (2 for beginners) before backing off for one week.

4) A goal to increase your long run until it is a certain distance (6 or 7 miles for rookies, up to 12 or 13 miles for older kids). Again, this needs to be done gradually - rarely should you add more than a mile to your longest run, and don't increase your long run more than 3 weeks in a row.

These are just some examples. There are limitless possibilities - figure out what motivates you to get out the door in the summer, and set a goal that will promote that motivation.

Fourth of July

2011-06-20T11:21:00.000-04:00

The Fourth of July is traditionally a big day for road racing in the Rochester area, and this year is no exception. There are races in Brighton, Irondequoit, Perinton and Sodus, with distances ranging from 2 miles to 10K. Last year, several team members participated in the Brighton 5K, and plan to do so again this year. Coach Klehr will also be running this year - how many of you can knock him off? He has been training hard!

Here is the website for the race. The sooner that you enter, the less expensive it is: the entry fee is $18 thru June 26th, then $20, and finally $25 on the day of the race.

You can enter online.

This is a nice way to give your training some focus over the next two weeks.

Wednesday Night Results

2011-06-17T18:35:00.000-04:00

So, the Webster Distance Runners were out and about on Wednesday night. A trio of seniors "manned up" and went to the challenging Dirt Cheap Trail Race at Ellison Wetlands. Geoff, John and Joe went 1-3-6 in the 19 & Under age group, with Geoff taking second place overall! Penfield star Katie Lembo was the overall women's winner, with an impressive time.

Other WDR connections spotted at the race included 2008 grad, Claire McMahon and her older brother Bobby, also a Schroeder XC alumnus, as well as some current WDR parents: Craig and Ellen Mallery and Kristen Kelly.

Meanwhile the Lyons boys took to Mendon Ponds Park for an orienteering doubleheader. First up was the Sprint course, which was just a little on the short side at 2.1km straight-line distance, but it included a staggering 105m of climb. Ahead of the race it was clearly a two-man battle for the win between recent WDR Nate Lyons and on of Syracuse U's current distance runners, Erin Schirm. Nate was actually ahead of the Schirminator thru 9 controls, and only down 1 second after 11, but the SU runner's speed on the trails was too much in the end and he prevailed: 11:48 to 12:03. Zach Lyons captured 3rd in 16:58, while Coach Lyons experienced a couple of disasters to fall back to 22:01. Future WDR Luke Lyons dominated the White course, winning by 9.5 minutes in 10:29.

After a very brief break came the Score-O event, where each competitor had 60 minutes to score as many points as possible. The added trick this time was that only 20 of the 29 controls were on the map, the other 9 could be found on map snippets located at designated controls. Erin Schirm managed to clear the course in 52:00. Nate finished in 48:52, but did not write down the location of the extra controls, so just visited the higher-point controls from memory. Unfortunately, his memory failed, not on a control location - he got there - but on forgetting to punch. This caused him to fall back to 3rd place. Zach was 4th. Coach Lyons forgot about the different point values (ranged from 2-47) and got suckered into getting some low point controls and only managed 9th place. Luke led his grandfather around the course and finished 13th.

Cross Country is Underway!

2011-06-16T09:55:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday we had the Spring XC meeting to kick-off the 2011 Season. A very fine turnout indicates that there is some excitement about the upcoming year. While 5 of our Sectional boys runners are graduating, we had more depth last year than in any previous year, meaning that there should be some youngsters ready to step in and keep the momentum going.

On the girls side, everyone is back, while Fairport and Hilton each lose two runners and Thomas loses four. But R-H also returns everyone and Penfield returns their top 5, so there is work to be done!

Our first weekly training plan update will go out to the Webster Schroeder XC group on Google this weekend!

Counties

2011-05-20T18:42:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow is the Monroe County Championship meet. It is at Penfield HS, starting at 10am. The order of events is available in the Meet Information document.

I believe all scratches had to be completed earlier today, so the current Performance List should have the final entrants for each race.

If the meet flows smoothly, here are my best estimates of the starting times for the distance events. Please note that these could be off by some margin, in either direction.
10:35 - 2000m Steeple (assumes 22 runners in 1 heat)
10:46 - 3000m Steeple (20 runners; 1 heat)
11:34 - 1500m (29; 2)
11:49 - 1600m (36; 2)
[12:15/12:23 - 400m]
12:33 - 3000m (31; 2)
12:59 - 3200m (51; assuming 2, but there should be 3 with this total)
[1:27/1:37 - 400IH]
1:47 - 800m girls (26; 2)
1:55 - 800 boys (34; 3)
2:48 - 4 x 800 girls
3:00 - 4 x 800 boys

The JV County Championship results are available for both Boys and Girls. More to come on those fine season-ending performances.

Division I Champs!

2011-05-18T08:11:00.000-04:00

Apparently it is not yet official, since yesterday's D&C reported that our Boys Track team's record is 6-1, but with another exciting win over Penfield yesterday, 76-65, I have been told that we are actually 7-0 and have won the Division Championship. What an unlikely feat for a team that was expected to struggle to finish above .500!

The story is that R-H (unknowingly) had an ineligible athlete competing on their team, and was forced to forfeit the meets in which he was a competitor. One of those was against us, so our lone loss will be wiped, giving us the clean slate and the Division title.

The win was very impressive, given that we decided to rest AJ, as a precautionary measure, to ensure that he is healthy for the Championship season. Some fine distance performances were turned in, with Justin M winning the 400, Ben F and John W placing second and third behind Tyler Gumina in the 1600, a pair of Justins going 1-3 in the 800 and Geoff and Adrian scoring the 1-2 punch in the 3200.

Justin M almost came back to clinch the meet with a strong anchor leg in the 4x400, but the suspense lasted one more event until John W, Justin R and Ben F gave Geoff a huge lead in the 4x800 relay.

Now it's time to get ready for the Championship season. Over half of the boys distance team will compete in the JV Championships at Rush-Henrietta on Thursday, with the Girls JV Champs to follow on Friday at Hilton. Information on the Varsity Championship meets will follow in the next article.

Royal Comet

2011-05-14T07:03:00.000-04:00

This is too late to be useful to anyone except me, but here is a link to the Royal Comet meet info, including the order of events.

The meet starts at 10am today, with the Steeplechase. After the high hurdles, they run the 3000/3200, then the 4x100 and 4x400 before the 1500/1600 and Tanski mile. Then: 100, 400, IH, 800, 200, 4 x 800, Sprint Medley (no DMR at R-H? That's a surprise...)

Blog Down

2011-05-12T21:29:00.000-04:00

I can't post live, so I'm trying via e-mail.

A very nice win over Fairport on Tuesday. Almost everything went our way, allowing us to rack up 86 points. One last dual meet on Monday, against Penfield, but in the meantime, we have a busy weekend with the JV meet on Friday and the Royal Comet Invite on Saturday. When the blog comes back up, I'll post the link to the meet info.

Last Week

2011-05-09T22:12:00.000-04:00

So, I made my first trip to Hilton Head Island last weekend. I hope it's not my last, as it was an excellent experience. It didn't hurt that my cousin arranged her wedding in some great environs, with fantastic food and plenty of guests that I don't get to see often enough.

As you can imagine, a rushed trip is not conducive to catching up on blogging, so I'll have to provide more links and less writing today! First up is this entertaining article on last week's meet at Rush-Henrietta, featuring Amanda's unique situation:

Paratore wins 3,000m in bizarre fashion

I quickly found two factual errors in the article. Are there others? Be the first to comment with the errors and win accolades!

I don't know if it's part of the article, but when I went to the link, I got bonus content of the photo of Val and Amanda leading the way up the hill at Webster Park in last fall's meet against Thomas and Hilton (and Arcadia).

And of course, there was this photo in the D&C when I returned last night:

Great performances by the distance team can be seen in the full Cadet Classic results.

Deadbeat

2011-05-05T23:28:00.000-04:00

Yes, I still owe a write-up of the meet at Rush-Henrietta on Tuesday. The punchline is that we beat Victor and Irondequoit (but lost to R-H) to improve to 4-1 on the season.

Good luck to the team this weekend at the Runnin' Cadet Classic (and to the JV folks at Irondequoit)! The Glavin 3000/3200 should be exciting. And I am a fan of the XC Steeplechase race.

Canandaigua

2011-04-29T11:37:00.000-04:00

A very nice team effort for the boys' win in Canandaigua on Wednesday! The Distance Team contributed quite substantially.

In the 400, AJ and Justin M went 1-3 in the tough wind conditions. We followed that up in the 1600 by taking the top 5 (or was it 6?) positions. Geoff tried his hand at the 400 hurdles and came very close to completing the sweep with Eric and Juan - I think if he knew how badly the Canandaigua competitor was going to fade in the wind, he would have caught him.

The 800 was perhaps the most exciting race of the day, as Canandaigua's runner jumped out to the lead, with a pair of Justins and Ben in pursuit. Coming off the last turn, they went by en masse, for another distance sweep. The perfect distance score was kept quite easily in the 3200, as the lone opposition runner dropped off the very slow pace set by Geoff, John W and Adrian during the first mile (attempting to pull along some of our youngsters).

We completed the day with a pair of relay victories, with Ben, Will, Justin M and AJ taking the 4 x 400 by a sizable margin, then the 4 x 800 crew of Justin R plus the 3200 runners came within meters of lapping Canandaigua's entry.

It reminded me of old East Aurora track meets, where the distance team would score all possible points and the sprinters, jumpers and throwers would net just enough points to pull out the win. I don't think this is the trick to beating R-H (or even Victor) next week, though!

The girls meet was quite exciting, but there were not quite enough points to be had. Val split the 1500/800 with Canandaigua's top runner, and Amanda made a valiant effort to beat the twin sister in the 3000.

Unfortunately, both the 3000/3200 and the 4 x 800 relays were run as combined events, giving the girls less recovery time before the 4 x 800 relay. I thought they had a shot at knocking off Canandaigua, but couldn't quite stay close enough to give Val a shot in the anchor leg. I am looking forward to a rematch at Counties, Sectionals and/or State Quals.

Spring Break

2011-04-25T15:31:00.000-04:00

Nasty weather prevailed for both meets during Spring Break, with the apparent exception of the start of the Webster Invitational at Penfield on Wednesday. I was not able to catch the alleged nice weather that day, but the times in the Steeplechase and 3000/3200 seem to support that allegation.

On Monday, the runners were treated with snow at the Wayne County Spring Break meet at Marion High School. Results from that meet are here. Highlights included Val's double victory in the Steeplechase (7:53) and 800 ("only" 2:25), Amanda's victory by almost one full minute in the 3000 (10:51), Ben, Geoff and Adrian's 2-3-5 in the 800. Geoff's runner-up to Ryan Moynihan in the 1600, AJ's win in the 3200, under 10 in the snow, and the boys' overall win.

The Webster Invitational results are available here.

World "Best" not "Record"

2011-04-19T14:27:00.001-04:00

Technically, you can't call it a World Record (although the BAA is appealing that decision), but a couple of Kenyans duked it out yesterday to see who would wind up running the fastest marathon in history. Because the Boston Marathon finish line is "too far" from the starting line, and the course is "too downhill", the course is ineligible for World Record certification. Those of us who have run Boston can attest that the downhill portions actually make Boston a tougher course than flat marathons. Not to mention the fact that you only run downhill for the privilege of running up the Newton hills, culminating in Heartbreak. It is true that yesterday's tailwind was helpful, but every course is unique, so why not require world records to only be allowed on a track?

In the end, Geoffrey Mutai had just a little bit more left at the end. From our vantage point just past Kenmore Square, with less than a mile to go, it was not clear who would prevail, but Moses Mosop could "only" manage 2:03:06 to Mutai's 2:03:02.

Ryan Hall showed what a stud he is, by leading for much of the race, then hanging on to finish fourth in a blistering 2:04:58.

Since the elite women start 28 minutes before the men, the leaders came through almost 10 minutes before the men. And the fans were going crazy, as there was actually an American in the hunt for the win as the top 3 came through in an ever-shifting bunch. We went back inside to catch the exciting finish on TV, and Desiree Davila wound up two seconds short, running 2:22:38, behind Kenya's Caroline Kilel.

Perhaps the finest Boston that I have witnessed - topping the Salazar-Beardsley dual in 1982.

AGR!

2011-04-15T09:56:00.000-04:00

The All Greater Rochester teams for the winter sports were announced in a special section of the D&C this morning, and the Webster Distance Runners were well-represented, with AJ Nasello earning AGR honors on the boys side, and Valerie Palermo scoring an AGR spot on the girls side.

The full article is available here.

Congratulations to AJ and Val!

One thing does bother me about the article: there are two sports - "Large School Wrestling" and "Small School Wrestling". OK, I understand that wrestling has separate weight classifications, since it is not fair for a 200-pounder to wrestle a 98-pounder. But why should there be a difference if a 135-pounder from a small school is wrestling a 135-pounder from a large school - to that point where they call it a separate "Sport" in the D&C AGR issue?!?

In the meantime, there is no Nordic (or Alpine) Ski AGR Team. Why is that? Eric deserves to be recognized for his outstanding performance in his winter sport. And we had at least 10 WDR members competing in Nordic this winter.

JV Today, Varsity on Saturday

2011-04-14T12:37:00.000-04:00

Today the JV team "travels" to Thomas for a JV meet that is scheduled to include Thomas, Arcadia, Olympia and Victor. I hope it is over in time to catch the start of the Sabres playoff game! The schedule lists a 4:30 start time, so the Varsity will be kicked off the track prior to that time. We may have to get creative in finishing the workout.

On Saturday, I should be in Boston to catch Chelsea's crew race (and dwelling on my missed opportunity to run Boston on Monday), so I will likely miss the Wayne County Spring Break meet at Marion. But I will be cheering for reasonable weather for y'all. And here's hoping that Marion has pins for their Steeplechase barriers!

WOW, er Double WOW!

2011-04-13T09:26:00.000-04:00

And by WOW, I also mean Win Over Webster.

What an exciting pair of dual meets, with the boys pulling out a 71-70 win, and the girls meet also decided on the last event of the day, which happens to be the 4x800m relay.

The boys got off to a mixed start, with a 9-0 (track dual meets are scored: 5 points for 1st, 3 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd, in individual events, and just 5 points for the winning relay team) surprise in the High Hurdles, followed by a 1-8 surprise, only claiming 3rd in the 400.

The 1600 was up next and Thomas had both Jared and Tim running. Nobody wanted to push things early, so AJ, Jared and Tim came through the 800 in 2:25, with Adrian close behind, but the 3rd lap turned it into a 3-man race, and the final lap became a 400m race, with Tim quickly falling behind as AJ took off, with Jared chasing. AJ clocked a 61 for the last lap, to win by a safe margin.

The girls 1500 saw Val and Amanda running side-by-side, with Annelise tucked in behind and three Thomas girls following. After opening with an 80, they slowed to 87 on the second lap, but started pressing the pace a bit late the 3rd lap to come thru in 83. From there it became a kicker's race and Val took off with Amanda and Annelise chasing, and only one Thomas girl staying close. Unfortunately, that one Thomas girl passed Annelise on the final straight and then edged a surprised Amanda at the wire. The girls ran 54, 57 and 58 for the last 300m.

The boys swept the 100 and reports came in showing 3 points in the Long Jump and 6 in the Discus, for a 33-21 lead. In the 400 Hurdles, Eric got off to a great start and had a nice lead at the 250m, when Jared, who was 2nd in the Steeplechase at the State Championships last spring, went to work. Jared hit the second-to-last hurdle, giving Eric another lead, but Jared battled back and, in a judges decision, edged Eric at the wire. Juan grabbed 3rd for another point.

In the 800, Thomas had Tim and a part-time runner entered. The part-timer shot to the lead early, while AJ and Justin M tucked in. They came thru the 400 in about 63 or 64, and on the backstretch, Justin took off as planned, with AJ waiting. No challenge came from Thomas, so Justin held on for the win, with AJ being content with second.

The girls race featured Molly from Thomas, who was out quick and made it clear the race was for 2nd and 3rd places. Annelise stayed close for a while, making the second lap tough for herself, but still managed 2:36, while Alyssa came on strong in the second lap to run 2:37.

The 200 did not go well, with the Thomas 400, not 100, kids leading the way to a 1-8 result for us. The Pole Vault results showed 3 points, but we managed 4 in the Shot Put, and the score was now 53-46.

In the 3200, Jared and Tim were both back for their 3rd events, while Geoff and Afro Thunder were fresh for us. Jared led the first mile, trying to keep the pace slow (5:22), so Geoff knew he had to go to work at that point. He threw in laps of 73, 74 and 73 to try to take some kick out of Jared. John held on for a 5th lap, but then dropped off quicker than Tim. On the last lap, Jared made a strong move and just had too much speed for Geoff, who managed a 4:52 second mile.

The 3000 was the Val and Amanda show. They went out hard the first lap (81), and found that there were three Thomas girls giving it a shot. Despite slowing significantly to come thru the 1600 in 6:06, one Thomas girl fell off. The last 1400 started with a 92 and a 90, but then the girls pushed the pace and turned in an 85, while opening up a gap and won going away with 37 and 38 for Val and Amanda in the last 200.

The field event results came in (6 in the Triple Jump and 4 in the High Jump) and both Schroeder teams needed one relay win in order to win their meets. The boys 4 x 100 was close, but the 4 x 400 was not. The girls lost both relays by a large margin, setting up each 4 x 800 relay to decide the meet.

For the boys, Ben led off and made sure he had a lead for Justin R. Justin went out in a 73 as he tried to let the Thomas runner lead him, before getting much more intense on the second lap and giving Justin M a nice lead over Tim. Tim looked like he might make it very interesting, but couldn't match Justin's speed near the end, so AJ received the baton safely ahead of Jared, who was much more worn out that AJ. So, AJ was able to run 63-64 laps and secure the victory.

The girls race was excellent. Amanda led off with a 2:37 and a lead. Alyssa ran like a veteran and also went 2:37, to maintain a small lead. Molly was running third for Thomas and caught Annelise in the first 150m, but Annelise stayed close most of the way, and handed off to Val about 4-5 seconds down, running 2:36. Val went thru the 200 in about 32, but had not closed the gap by much. That was actually a good sign, indicating that the Thomas anchor was out way too quickly. Indeed, as Val went thru the 400 in 66, it was clear that she was gaining, and she took the lead with just about 300m to go. The Thomas girl was gassed and Val went on to a 2:22 split to win the event handily, and the meet.

Thomas Today

2011-04-12T07:39:00.000-04:00

After Friday's experience, we open the real season today against Thomas. Despite sharing the track with them during practice, I don't really know their strengths and weaknesses, but from all indications, it should be a close meet.

The Thomas distance team is really made up of their "big three". It will be interesting to see where Jared, Cole and Tim decide to run, and how our top guys can match up in a dual meet setting. And if the meet comes down to the 4x800 relay, Thomas has several young kids that would be candidates to round out the relay and create a very exciting race.

The Thomas girls, I think, have everyone back from the 4x800 relay that went to the state meet last year. Their girls don't seem to move up distances as well as ours do, but we should see some exciting distance races on the girls' side as well.

Friday's Workout

2011-04-07T17:08:00.000-04:00

Those of you not going to the meet on Friday, can get together for a quick workout after school. Here is the plan:

12 min w/up
4 x 200m between 800m and 1600m race pace, start every 2 minutes
3 x 800m tempo pace (30 seconds between each, jog 400m after finishing the last one)
4 x 200m just as fast as the first set.
12 min w/dn

Have fun!

45-60 minutes on Saturday, then you can take Sunday off. Monday will be easy, of course, since we have Thomas on Tuesday.

Championship Qualifying Times

2011-04-06T14:13:00.000-04:00

For those of you that are looking to make Sectionals, the qualifying standards are available here. To save you a click, here are the times of importance to the distance team (Automatic / Provisional):

Boys
800: 2:03.94 / 2:09.94
1600: 4:37.84 / 4:56.04
3200: 10:07.84 / 10:45.94
Steeple: 10:38.64 / 11:17.24

Girls
800: 2:26.94 / 2:36.04
1500: 5:03.74 / 5:23.24
3000: 11:07.94 / 11:52.14
Steeple: 7:59.94 / 8:50.14

I can't find the Monroe County standards anywhere. There is an alleged link to last year's standards, but that link is dead. It seems like last year, the County Standards were just a little faster than the Sectional Provisional times.

And since I failed to post yesterday, here is a bonus tidbit for today - hot off the press:
Brycen Spratling Earns MAC Track Athlete of the Week

Way to go, Brycen! In that same meet, Kevin Enck competed for UB, running 16.19 for 7th in the hurdles (he ran as quick as 15.31 at the end of last year) and tossing the Discus (?!?) 33.70m, which is just over 110 feet. I know he needs the event for the Decathlon, but perhaps he should stick to jumping in meets - or perhaps the 1500 ;-).

What's Your Main Event

2011-04-04T19:59:00.000-04:00

I had a chance to talk with some folks regarding their main event for this spring season. I want to make sure that we customize some of the upcoming workouts for the different events. For example, this Wednesday, I want to give the Steeplechasers a chance to go over some hurdles during our interval workout. It should be interesting to figure out the proper spot to start the 700m intervals, not knowing ahead of time which lane will have the hurdles, and adjusting the distance down a bit to make the effort equivalent to a flat 700.

We will also soon be to the point where the 800 folks will do some shorter, faster stuff, while the 3200 runners will continue to do longer fast stuff.

Friday's Workout

2011-03-31T13:41:00.000-04:00

Today is Opening Day for Major League baseball. Go Dodgers! (the Sox don't open until tomorrow)

This weekend is "Opening Day" for orienteering season, so I'm heading to Cincinnati for the 15th annual Flying Pig A-Meet, which includes the US Ultralong Championships on Saturday. The open men's course has an expected winning time of 130-145 minutes, so I'm running the master men's course, which is almost 1/3 shorter and should be won in 90-100 minutes. Luke (age 9) is making his A-Meet debut on the Yellow course (for 13-14 year olds), so we'll see what he's made of. Nate struggled with his first Yellow Flying Pig weekend (it's usually not like "Yellow" in Rochester), and he was older.

We still don't know when our Opening Day will be. The latest guess is next Wednesday - which may be the rescheduled date for Penfield.

Anyway, put those together and you'll see that I need to leave you with the workout on Friday. It's time for some more fast stuff, like this:
4 x 200 (start one every 2 minutes)
2 x 400 (first one starts 2 min after last 200 starts, second starts 4 min later)
1 x 600 (rest 4 min after)
2 x 400 (second starts 4 min after the first)
4 x 200 (first starts 4 min after the last 400, then start every 2 minutes)

These should be done at R pace (mile race pace). The 600 should be a real challenge, so don't run the first set of 200s too quickly.

Is There An App For That?

2011-03-30T08:28:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the quiet period, but with the delayed start to the season, I have been spending all of my spare time working on a Track Assistant app for the BlackBerry. The vision that I have is an app that allows me to track times and splits during practices and meets, as well as keeping score of the meet, as the various field event results are reported.

Release 0.1 is almost ready. It will at least have a stopwatch feature that will allow me to time intervals at practice and record the results (by athlete) in a file.

It is not especially pretty, but it should get the job done. During the winter, I developed a Hoop Stats app, that allowed me to track basketball stats for Luke's team. I am also working on an app that is much more complex, to serve as a baseball scorebook and record hitting, fielding and pitching stats. I hope to have that ready for Luke's opening day in May.

Speaking of opening days, I have not yet heard of a make-up date for our postponed opener against Penfield. Next week is the only week where it would not be a third meet in the week for us, but the question is, will it warm up enough by then to dry out the shot / discus fields? It's nice having access to the all-weather track at Thomas, but at this time of year, we need an all-weather field to go with it!

Opening Day Postponed

2011-03-26T09:12:00.000-04:00

The powers that be decided to schedule our opening track meet in March. Well, the recent snowfall and current cold (12 degrees in Buffalo, as I write this) have made them recognize the error of their ways (at least for this year), and we will not be opening up on Wednesday against Penfield.

The good news is that gives us 9 extra days to prepare for our first meet and 13 extra days before our first dual meet, against our friends from Thomas. The bad news is that many of you are quite ready to get back to racing, and will have to be patient, especially given that I assume the first meet (Newark Relays) will have limited entries.

Enjoy your longer run this weekend!

Is this Indoor Season?

2011-03-24T23:01:00.000-04:00

So, tomorrow we will be at Schroeder for the third consecutive day following Wednesday's snowfall. We will make every effort to do a workout outside, so come prepared.

Colds and Flu

2011-03-23T21:19:00.000-04:00

We've had a number of sick folks lately, which is not unusual at this time of year. I'm not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I do have some observations and suggestions.

First, help your body fight off illness. One easy way to help is to be sure to get enough sleep. A well-rested body is better able to combat intruders. Second, I've seen studies that have shown both benefits and lack thereof of Vitamin C in cold prevention, but there is nothing wrong with a glass of orange juice, just in case.

Finally, if you are feeling ill, do what your doctor orders. If it isn't bad enough to see a doctor, then a reasonable rule of thumb is avoid running with a fever, but feel free if you just have cold symptoms (as long as they are not too severe) - just don't overdo it - as running produces adrenaline, which is a natural anti-histamine. And increase your fluid intake.

Nice Effort Yesterday!

2011-03-22T19:17:00.000-04:00

I know that it's tough to maintain focus during a longer tempo run (and yesterday we went longer than usual, to continue to build our base in preparation for our faster work), so we combined two ways to help out. I did not want to spend too much time on the Schroeder track - if we were at Thomas, we may have done a warm-up, then a mile tempo on the track to get the pace, then more tempo out-and-about, then the final mile back on the track.

Instead, we did the classic head out easy and come back faster to start off the tempo run, and to keep things honest, we timed the last mile on the track. The big boys knew a 3 mile mark, so that made things easy for them. Based on when the other guys returned, either some went out too fast or came back too slow, since we were shooting for 20 minutes out and 17 minutes back. But folks weren't off by much, so that was good. And the last mile on the track was solid (or better) for almost everyone.

This next week will be a challenge, to get ready to race next Wednesday, with the conditions that Mother Nature is tossing at us to start off our "Spring". But we will be ready!

Wintry Wednesday

2011-03-21T22:31:00.000-04:00

That's what the weatherman said to expect this week. Accuweather now says hi of 38 and snow accumulating 1-3 inches on Wednesday. With just one week to go until our first meet, that will not stop our workout, so come prepared: hat, gloves, warm clothes for after the run...

The long-range forecast for March 30th now says mostly sunny, but a hi of just 48. With the days that we have to deal with between now and then, that may feel balmy!

I'm sure you all saw Galen Rupp was a close 3rd in the NYC half marathon yesterday, posting an impressive 60:30 - not quite Ryan Hall, yet, but awfully quick.

Indoor Track

2011-03-20T18:34:00.000-04:00

The only WDR winter sport that I did not cover yet is Indoor Track. Complete results from the season are available at the Section V Indoor Track web site.

Val and AJ each qualified for the State Championships with comfortable wins in their respective 1000m races at the State Qualifier meet, with Val avenging her loss at Sectionals where she led for over 999 meters. Other WDR State Q participants included Annelise, who made it in the 1500 with a 5:08 at Sectionals; the girls 4 x 800m relay, who were unable to improve on their 10:20 qualifying time; Becka, who just missed a State Meet spot placing 4th and under the State standard with a 7:25 in the Walk; Geoff, whose recovery from injury continued, with a 10:11 in the 3200; Juan, who just missed the finals in the hurdles; and finally, the boys 4 x 800 relay, which had qualified with a time of 8:31. Justin M and Ben had qualified in the 1000, but chose to sit out in favor of staying fresh for the 4 x 800. John W and Adrian both had performances that qualified in the 1600, but did not enter.

You can check out the Leaderboard to see a nice summary of all of the best Schroeder performances for each distance - choose an event, a sex and Webster Schroeder for the school.

Saturday Practice

2011-03-18T08:24:00.000-04:00

The superintendent has also given you a break, and inserted a mild disruption into our schedule. The original plan was for a workout on Friday, giving us a chance for a longer run on Saturday. Instead, you were awarded back-to-back "easy" days, and we will practice from 9-11 tomorrow.

Colleges don't let school schedules get in the way of sports. Look at all of the time off for the March Madness participants. It's not all fun and games in college, though. In fact, I know one school that starts their Spring Break after classes today, but instead of heading to Daytona or Ft. Lauderdale, their crew team will be churning out two-a-day sessions on the Charles River.

Day Off

2011-03-17T20:46:00.001-04:00

So, Coach Klehr has cut the team a break: there is no practice tomorrow on your bonus vacation day. Enjoy the day off from school, but it's probably best to save your "optional" day off from running for Sunday.

There are two reasons for waiting until Sunday. First, it's best to stay in a routine, and all remaining Fridays will have a practice or a meet. Second, if someone takes Friday off, all too often they find themselves trapped with unplanned activities on Sunday, and end up not running either day.

As the season goes on, I highly recommend that everyone take a day off each second or third week - obviously, this day will usually be Sunday. We will quickly be ramping up the intensity, with the season fast approaching, so it will be best to take the occasional break.

On the other hand, I highly recommend that almost everyone take no more than one day per week off (injuries being the exception). After the meets start, the JV runners could have as few as 7 workout days left before JV Counties. So, the season is too short to take many days off.

Weather

2011-03-16T09:12:00.000-04:00

As I was running in the beautiful sunshine at lunchtime yesterday (instead of posting something here, oops), I was thinking how nice it will be when we have a day like that for one of our workouts. In the meantime, we'll have to slog through, and realize that it will a) make us tougher, and b) have us prepared for any early-season meets in less than ideal conditions.

For example, since our first dual meet is two weeks from today (wow, that soon?), AccuWeather now has that day's weather included in their 15-day outlook. And what do they say? Hi of 41 and periods of rain. Enough rain to cancel the meet? Or just the pole vault? Hi of 41 will drop to what, by the time the 3000/3200 and 4x800 relays roll around?

Anyway, this is just another reminder to be prepared for changing weather conditions. At this time of year, it is not uncommon for temperatures to swing by 20 degrees in relatively short order. You may leave for school in a t-shirt in the morning, but that doesn't mean you won't necessarily need water-resistant sweats, a hat and gloves for practice in the afternoon.

Well, Logical Tomorrow

2011-03-14T07:38:00.000-04:00

Since I spent too much time in the car yesterday, Sundays will be a day of rest. So, on Saturday, when I said "tomorrow", that really meant Monday.

It's back to work today for track practice. It looks like the weather will not be cooperating: we have workouts scheduled for Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but the nice weather this week is supposed to be on Tuesday and Thursday.

So, now our other Varsity participants from the winter. First we have the Webster Varsity Radio Club, starring a bunch of WDR WBER DJs. Since they are on from 4-5, I only get to listen on occasion, but the music is more diverse than the usual fare.

Finally, we had excellent representation on the Varsity Math Team. The Schroeder team at Counties included: John W, Justin M, Ethan, Megan, Khrystyna and Arjun. And Zach will be representing Monroe County at the State Meet in three weeks. I don't see the County results at the Math League web site, but Schroeder did win two of the regular season competitions, knocking off perennial powerhouse Brighton, among others.

Warrior Wrestling

2011-03-12T10:26:00.000-05:00

A couple WDR members competed for the wrestling team over the winter. There is a nice wrestling web site that covers Sections V and VI, called armdrag. You can go there and see that Webster was 2-4 in their division, but 8-6 overall.

The web site has links to a listing of all reported results for each individual, so we can see how Eric Krawiec and Jacob Devries did this year, and their career results show up as well.

Tomorrow, we'll point out two additional, non-running, Varsity teams that included Webster Distance Runners!

Webster Swimming

2011-03-11T07:44:00.000-05:00

John Killigrew was the lone representative of the WDR on the Webster swim team. As with Nordic, it is a combined team for Schroeder and Thomas.

Like track, swimming has a Section V Leaderboard. Unlike track, it only shows the top 25 in each event, so I only located two Webster swimmers on the lists (plus the 3 relays, but the team members are not called out).

Looking at the results from Sectionals, it is clear that Webster had a young team this year. The top two swimmers were juniors and not many seniors were listed, so perhaps the team, which has had some success in past years, will be stronger next year.

Winter Sports

2011-03-10T15:24:00.000-05:00

While the majority of Webster Distance Runners competed on the Indoor Track team, several went in other directions during the winter, but are back together for the outdoor season. We'll take a look at what links we can dig up for each of the sports. Today, we'll start with the Nordic Ski Team.

WDR competitors included Eric Mallery, Ben Thompson, Mike Hohl, Ray McBride, Zach Lyons, Phil LiPari, Steven Dana and Joe Hughes on the boys team, and only Amanda Paratore for the girls.

There is a nice web site for Section V Nordic, located here. It includes this link to the results from most of the season's races. The top performance of the year is not shown there: Eric placed in the top 5 at States, after qualifying by placing 7th at Sectionals. How often does someone place higher at States than at Sectionals?!? Future WDR(?), Pete Mallery also had an amazing season, capped with an 11th best split in the Skate relay at Sectionals, after placing 18th in the Classic race, splitting honors as the top freshman in the area (and state?) with Tyler Urckfitz, whose father competed in an epic race recounted here.

Amanda also had an outstanding season, as she led all Webster skiers in the Skate events, following tremendous improvement from her modified season a year ago. In Classic, she was usually second behind Jenna Bilsback (Nate says, "hi").

The rest of the boys, all relatively young and experienced, made solid showings on the Webster JV A team. And after a few days of track practice, it seems their fitness levels remained quite high, despite having wrapped up their season on Feb. 16th.

Silence is Ended

2011-03-09T08:09:00.000-05:00

OK, track season started on Monday, so I should rev up the blog again. In fact, with Lent starting today, perhaps one thing I can give up is skipping blog entries - we'll see how that goes.

The biggest surprise on Monday was the composition of the team. When Nate was a freshman, the team was very large and the distance team was very small (despite having grown significantly from the prior year, thanks to Nate and his band of freshmen). On Monday, after warm-ups, the (not quite as large) team split into two for the workout: distance runners and everyone else. This distance runner group was larger! And nearly half of "everyone else" had run XC!

Despite the 2.5 hours for practice, there was a lot of time pressure for our workout: only 40 minutes for putting on sweats, getting out the door w/up, w/dn and the tempo effort. I forgot to give the lecture on safety, since we are not running in Webster Park now. That may have to be an upcoming blog topic.

Boys Update

2010-11-13T12:06:00.001-05:00

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

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

Girls Update

2010-11-13T10:12:00.001-05:00

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

2010-11-12T23:11:00.001-05:00

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

2010-11-08T07:46:00.000-05:00

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

2010-11-04T22:49:00.000-04:00

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

2010-11-02T21:42:00.000-04:00

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

2010-11-01T07:43:00.000-04:00

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

2010-10-29T15:02:00.000-04:00

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

2010-10-28T11:22:00.000-04:00

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

2010-10-27T23:10:00.000-04:00

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

2010-10-25T12:12:00.001-04:00

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

2010-10-25T10:33:00.000-04:00

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

2010-10-21T02:08:00.001-04:00

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

2010-10-19T11:34:00.000-04:00

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

2010-10-19T00:48:00.000-04:00

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

2010-10-18T08:47:00.000-04:00

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

2010-10-15T08:34:00.000-04:00

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

2010-10-15T08:33:00.001-04:00

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.