McQuaid Invitiational

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

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

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

The Sophomore race will also include our Freshmen.

Let's hope for good weather and fast times!

Good For Them

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

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

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

Tomorrow's Scouting Report...

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

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

Fast Times at EA High

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

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

Complete results are available here.

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

Around the League

Basil Marella

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

Harris Whalen

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

Parma Park

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

Seneca Park

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

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

Northampton Park

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

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

So Close

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

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

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

You Go Girls!

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

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

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

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

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