|
|
| NEWSLETTERS Scroll down for past meets. It might get a little long, but you only have to read what's news to you.
2009
Kicks off at Wilmington College LATE NOTE: Our girls are ranked 1st, 3rd, & 10th in the Scarlet Division. The boys are ranked 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th & 14th. We had a pretty good start to the season! An early bus got us to Wilmington with enough time to set up "camp," get bib numbers and computer chips (a first for our teams) and go for a little warm-up run before the Girls race. A lot nicer than those years we had to stretch on the bus and run to the start for our warm-up! GIRLS We only had 3 girls racing today. Michelle is injured and we are still hunting for a number 5 (watch this space for further developments.) Our 3 did pretty well though. Natalie Geiger ran her first Varsity race and placed 11th in 20:51. She was the fastest Freshman in the race! We need to check earlier results but that may be the fastest NHS freshman since the revival of NHS XC in '03. Toria Alsip came in 74th with a 23:56. Not her PR, but her fastest first race. We need her to keep working and finish top 5 in FAVC again. Holly Schneider (aka Eggs McSchneider) had her first race bout of nerves but overcame it to finish 138th in 26:56. That puts her WAY ahead of her time last year, very close to what she was running toward the end of the season. GOOD JOB, ladies! BOYS We have a full seven runner boys team this year, 3 veterans and 4 rookies. Unfortunately two of our fastest veterans could not run this week. The rookies put in a promising performance, though. They ran in a group and finished strong, showing some good potential. Josh Sherman led the way with a 22:00 time with Jonathon Rhodes just 8 seconds behind. Conner Maglecic followed in 22:56, Victor Dornette (our lone vet) did a 23:17, and Ty Diersing had a 24:07. Five guys within in 2 minutes of each other is not bad. We just need to close that down to a minute, and then move the whole group down under 20. It can happen, they have the talent. MS GIRLS Coach Mike may have more to say, but I was very impressed with this group. Megan Grubb took 9th in 13:46 and could have been top 5 but got a stitch with 500 to go and let 4 girls kind of run away from her. She bounced back and narrowed the gap, but couldn't quite close the deal. Still, she had a very good performance. Jenna Worley was next, 48th @15:23. This was the first time I have seen her run because she also plays volleyball but I was very impressed. Courteney Grubb got 68th @ 16:09, and Cheyenne Haney 79th @16:24. That puts those three all within a minute of each other. Hopefully they can work together and lower their times together. So, good performances and another BE-A-U-TIFUL day for running. There is no better way to spend a Saturday morning this time of year. Not even pedaling a bike measures up! Let's hope our luck holds out and the next 10 Saturdays are just as nice!
2008
FAVC Championships Saturday 10/11 ANOTHER great day for Cross Country! Junior Michelle Geiger ThreePeated as FAVC Scarlet Champion and runner of the year. Junior Toria Alsip finished 4th to get First Team honors. Freshman Emily Grubb improved her PR, again, to finish 1oth and earn All FAVC honors. Holly Schneider ran well, again, proving her time last week was not a fluke. Kelsey Carter ran her first XC race and was a little surprised by the distance and pace the girls run, but she looked smooth and showed a lot of heart. Kelsey could be a big help the next two years! The league runs all three divisions together, making it tough to watch the race as I spend a lot of my time just trying to figure out which girls are "Scarlet" and which are from the other divisions and not worth worrying about. Michelle was well clear of any pretenders by the mile (1600m) mark and never looked back. Toria was bouncing around from 3rd to fifth, I think. The third place girl put a gap between them at about 2.5 M/4km, and then Toria did the same to the fifth place girl. A pretty good race from both of our leaders. Emily started moderately and moved up the rest of the race, passing people most of the way. Holly and Kelsey started with Emily, but by the halfway point they were dropping off her pace. Holly finished with a near PR, and Kelsey looked like she gave her all, needing help through the chute. The first race is always the toughest. Alysha was not able to race this week, and we all missed her. Hopefully she will be able to rejoin us, if not for Districts at least for next year. Hang in there. The girls got third, ten points behind repeat champs Northwest. If we had all the girls who have run for us, but didn't/couldn't we would have run away with the title. Oh well. Coulda shoulda woulda. This is a great group of young ladies, and I am proud of their heart, the improvements they made, and their general attitude. If they all stick with it they can be will be Champs next year. In what may have been Tyler Alsip's last race, he managed to pull out an 11th place finish and win All -FAVC honors again. TA's focus will be shifting to wrestling and improving on his 8th in state from last year. We all wish him well. Daniel Barber was not far behind, and just missed breaking into the elusive 19's with 20:09. Sooo close! If he doesn't break 20 @ Districts our goal is to just skip the 19s and run 18 or better all next year. Tyler Bradley decided to go out with Daniel, hang with him, and chase the 20 minute mark, too. He lasted a good distance but he just has TOO many fast twitch fibers. It was fun watching him eat up the ground and pass several runners over the last 200m though! Hopefully he has been laying the ground work for a school record in the 200 or 400. Or . . . 800??? I don't think so! Victore Dornette got gapped. It is tough to run your best over 5k when there is nobody to race. Victor was way behind one guy, well ahead of another, suffering, but unable to race anybody. He plugged on, but a was a bit off his best time. Logan didn't show up, so we did not place as a team, or score any points in the FAVC all sports competition.
Seven Hills Invitional Oct. 4 2008Yet another BE-A=U-TIFUL day for running. What a good course. I thought we were going to have not just one real, scoring, team but two. I was excited! However, while counting heads getting on the bus (not a tough job if you have all your fingers) I found we had only 4 girls and 4 boys. BUMMER, but it is really and individual sport. sort of . We get to 7 Hills, survey the course and decide that we should do well. It is HILLY. The boys give me a scare because there is less than ten minutes to go and they are NOT to be found. It seems they all, uhh, wanted to avoid schlebenizing the course. They FINALLY get to the start line, in time, and I get to relax a bit. This was a tough course, but these guys took off and other than Logan, who had a bit of a problem, the guys all ran very close to their best times! Tyler A was 20th @19:42, Daniel 27th @20:35, and Victor 68th @23:28. I think these guys are getting tougher. The girls . . . Disappointing to everyone to be a runner shy of a team, but the girls tried to let their presence be known. Michelle and Toria ran much of the first mile shoulder to shoulder before Michelle pulled away. They finished 4th and 5th with 21:46 and 23:13. Not their best times, but pretty close. The big surprise was the Freshmen. Emily and Holly are starting to look like RACERS instead of just runners. They did the teammate thing and ran with each other much of the way, traded places a couple of times, fought with other girls and pulled away from one girl near the end. Emily pulled a little ahead and finished 18th @25:37 and Holly was 20th @25 :46. I had told them to leave everything on the course, and get up the last hill anyway they could. Holly did just that, running her best time ever but getting caught and passed in the last 20 yards at the top of the finishing hill. Both of our Freshman dropped their time by nearly a minute and a half, that is around 28 seconds PER MILE. That is big! It means they both have a shot at being all conference next week! We could have all 5 of our varsity make first or second team.
St. Xavier Invitational 9-27-2008 I hate to say this for fear of jinxing us but, we had another great day for racing! A little cooler, nearly ideal temps. The day started with the middle schoolers. Conner ran a good race to finish in the middle of the pack, but he looks smoother and stronger every week and will be a good addition to the HS. In the girl's race Natalie was running alone, but let everybody know she was there! Moving up from sixth place early on she was second near the end, then lost out in the sprint to finish a strong third. She should help us just a little bit next year! Good job from both of our MS racers. Next week they go to WINTON WOODS for the MS FAVC. Natalie was second last year . . . Wish her well and let's hope she can move up a spot! Varsity Girls were our next race, but no team this week. Varsity Soccer had a game, plus we had some no shows!?!?. Toria Alsip was running a pretty good race at the 2 mile mark but was fighting a stitch, and then went down with some breathing issues. Asthma? Hyperventilating? I don't know, but it was an unfortunate DNF as she was on her way to a PR based on her 2 mile split. Holly Schnieder improved her time a bit, mainly because she stepped it up and had a strong finishing drive over the final 3-400 meters. It is always good to see kids learning to stretch themselves beyond their comfort zones . . . it means improvement is likely. Varsity Boys were our last race for the day. As a team it was not an exciting showing, 22 out of 23 full teams, but that 23 team was 7 Hills, our host next week so we have expectations for that meet now. Individually we had a pretty good day. Tyler Alsip was just over 19 minutes, his second best time ever. Daniel Barber had a big 40 second improvement and is flirting with sub -20 minutes. Tyler Bradley topped that with a 49 second improvement. If these two would run together early on they could push each other to the sub 20minute time they are both more than capable of. Logan Wachter topped both of those guys with a 57 second drop. Logan has missed a couple of meets, I think he is starting to get the experience to race a really good 5k. Hopefully it will happen in two weeks. Victor Dornette did NOT improve his PR, BUT he did show some consistency as he was within a few seconds of his New Richmond time. NO MORE 24s, Vic! LOL FAVC PREDICTIONS (two weeks away): GIRLS: We look to be a #3 again. :-( BUT only by 10 points! It would not take much improvement to put us in contention for the title. Our three Freshman hold the key, and would have made us a shoe in if we hadn't lost people from last year. I can handle losing, I hate giving titles away. Michelle has the best time, but the Talawanda girls will be gunning for her. Threepeating is ALWAYS tough. Toria needs to hammer this one, top 4 is a must or our hopes go bust. BOYS: Talawanda and Edgewood will probably battle for first and second. We have a couple of big goals, though. TylerA needs to repeat as First Team All -Scarlet. He may even be able to challenge the leaders. Daniel and TylerB have a shot for second team honors. If they can pull that off we might, might, might be able move out of the cellar and into the #4, or even #3 spot. (optimism and hope keep me going . . .) Of course it would help if Logan and Victor can have a big drop, too. They are both capable of improving from the high thirties and scoring in the 20s for us.
New Richmond Invitatioal 9-20-2008 A quick note for now. A GREAT day for XC out on one of the better XC courses we visit. HS Boys were up first @ 9 am so we were on the bus EARLY. Tyler Alsip led our threesome as he broke 19 minutes for the first time and now ranks 7th in the league. Our goal is to get Tyler under 18:00 for the FAVC. Daniel Barber took about a half minute off his best, and Victor Dornette chopped a couple of minutes off of his. Good outings by all three. Tyler Bradley and Logan Wachter missed a good race. The girls were up next and we had a legal team for the first time this year and finished FOURTH! Michelle got sixth with her season's best time, Toria Alsip was 17th with her best (they are ranked 1 and 3 in the FAVC Scarlet last time I checked.) Alisha Hamilton ran her first race of the year and posted a 25:01. Not bad, but she has a lot more to give! Emily Grubb posted her first time, a 27:05. She also showed a lot of promise. Holly Schneider was fighting some stomach problems as we were getting off the bus, but she rolled to a big PR improvement anyway. In the MS open race Natalie Geiger and Megan Grubb finished 2 and 3 for the girls, collecting some nice medals. I will post the official results just as soon as I get them.
BETHEL-TATE INVITATIONAL 9-13-2008 All the rain Friday had us all a bit worried, but Saturday dawned warm and clear, and with a long drive out to Eastern clermont county we all saw it dawn! As I type this I don't have results yet. I will keep checking and edit them in ASAP, but I wanted to get this up while I could. Racing started with the MS BOYS, or boy in our case. Conner ran a good steady race, Coach Alsip says he looked stronger and improved his time. He looked good, and if he keeps working will be a big factor at the HS in a couple of years. MS GIRLS were next, and again we had only one entrant, Natalie Geiger. Natalie went out very sensibly while most of the girls were sprinting for the first turn. At the half mile mark she was trailing back aroun 20th, but everybody had slowed and she kept moving. As they came out of the woods around a mile and quarter she had moved up and was running with a small group from 8-12th place. She wound up finishing a strong 9th place to pick up a medal, which makes her two for two in the race for hardware this year, after her 5th at Princeton. BOYS VARSITY were the next up, the one race where we had a legal, scoring team, even though a couple of the guys were not feeling too well before the start. Tyler Alsip ran another good race braking 20 minutes and improving upon last year's time by at least 30 seconds. He also went head to head with some guys over the last 600 m and just out gutted them with a long sustained drive that left them with too little sprint to catch him. It was a pretty way to finish. Based on last year's progression he looks more and more like he will be a real factor in the FAVC race. Daniel Barber had a good outing and had to do some racing over the last mile to separate from a group. Tyler Bradley wasn't feeling well and was a tail ender at the half mile but ran a superb mid-race pace to move up to our #3 spot with an okay time. We finally got Logan Wachter into a race (read: out of bed on time) and although he faded a bit to finish behing TB, which may just be due to Tyler running so well in midrace, he still looked good and is really rounding into shape. We had our two junior stalwarts in the GIRLS VARSITY, Michelle Geiger and Toria Alsip. We should actually have a pretty good team, if we can ever get five, or even all seven, to a meet at the same time. The basic plan was for the girls to use a little restraint at the start and run a steady pace, passing people along the way and move up, working together as long as possible. Things looked good as they came through the half mile in about 24 place, and were aroun 12 and 20 at a mile and a quarter. Someplace between there and 2 miles Toria slipped in a ditch -there were LOTS of puddles and slippery spots- and twisted her knee. shortly after the 2 mile mark she sat down in tears and got carried to the trainer for a sizable icepack. Meanwhile, Michelle kept inching higher in the standings. At 2.5 she was part of a trio, a little too far behind #6, well ahead of #10, locked in a race for 7 th place. With about 700 m to go Michelle accelerated, similar to what Tyler Alsip had done 30 minutes earlier. One girl started falling behind, the other went with Michelle. At about 300 m it happened again, and though it took longer to pull away from this one Michelle did, and finished in 7th, grabbing a little more "bling" for the Geiger collection this weekend. | |
|