Weekend Update

OK, so these last few days have been wicked hectic, as they say in that state to our east that has provided us with a wonderful visitor and fan this weekend. This means that I have neglected the blog (and I still haven't posted anything on Attackpoint about my wonderful adventures in Harriman State Park last weekend), and the preview of the Bulldog Stampede was done by word of mouth, and with less detail than usual.

Before I discuss our performance against expectations, let me point out that these past 15 days amounted to the most difficult training period of our season. We did not ease up at all for this invitational, so I didn't expect a whole lot of improvement over last year.

Starting with the JV girls, which, since we were short-handed, consisted of just Amanda and Kristen, we saw a very good performance. They worked together to post PRs, Kristen by 2:26 and Amanda by 23 seconds per mile over McQuaid.

The Varsity girls were running against an outstanding field, and missing two of their top 3 runners; however, hidden in the pack was a race within the race, among Schroeder, Niagara-Wheatfield and Hutch Tech. With the other teams each putting two runners in the top half of the field, we were at quite a deficit, but the girls managed their best 1-5 gap of the season, just 1:36, and edged NW by 1 point and HT by 5. How many heroes were there in this effort? Well, technically none, but there were six heroines. Sarah displaced two HT runners in the effort, and gamely closed the gap on the 5th NW girl. Hannah was locked in a head-to-head dual with a girl from Willy South and won the point. Janelle, after pushing the pace for our rookies early, held on just enough. Khristyna knocked 1:36 off last year's time to secure her solid spot. And our rookies were huge: Karen led the team thru most of the race, running her fastest race of the year; Anneleise, despite showing some early doubt of her coach's prediction that she could be our top runner in the race, came flying thru the last 500m, catching at least 7 girls, the last by just 1/2 second, to contribute to the cause.

The JV boys could not have placed better. Finishing 5th behind just Mendon, Canisius, Sutherland and East Aurora is terrific. Overall, the boys improved a median of 52 seconds over last year. The JV race saw 3 runners under 19 minutes, 5 under 20 and 10 under 21. Six JV runners set outright PRs: Ethan, Trevor, John, Ryan, Justin and Bobby. Six others ran their fastest pace of the year: Geoff, Eric, JP, Tom, Kenny and Arik. All of the others were hampered by illness or injury and still came very close. I am looking forward to seeing what the JV squad can do at Counties, after a little time to R&R.

Finally, the Varsity boys 5th place finish was a little disappointing, losing again to Williamsville North and finishing behind Sutherland kept us out of trophy position. Our top 3 ran about where expected, but we needed some help from the rest of the team. AJ's injury certainly slowed him, and Chris probably ran his hardest workout of the year on Thursday, so Steve's slowed recovery from being ill was unfortunate, as was AB's scratch. I am confident that we will catch Sutherland at Counties. They ran a very good race, compared to where they had been, so I'm certain they were a bit rested for this meet.

Looking forward, we have our league meet finale on Tuesday at Mendon West. It should be a very competitive meet, with Arcadia and Odyssey both fielding boys teams with about the same record as us. On the girls side, Odyssey is probably not catchable and Arcadia is usually incomplete, but the Olympia race should be a thriller. I'll have a scouting report available tomorrow.