Whew...what a long day...many lessons learned, great fun had, and a few stories for the future. This week was a tough one to stay healthy but we got most of our athletes through the week and are bringing a few more guys back from injuries as we make our way towards the stretch run of the season. It was fun getting to see some new competition and learn some different race stategies. I hope our non-seniors learned a lot from todays race so that when we come back next season we are better prepared to race at Smiley. It is a tough course but with the right race strategy it can be a PR course (we had dozen PRs today). It was nice to have the coach buses for the ride to Wausau (thanks to all the donations provided, collected, and fundraised for this effort...we'll have to do it again next year to have the "sweet" rides). It was fun for us as coaches seeing all of our athletes hanging out and enjoying each others company all day long.
Our varsity team finished 4th in the large schools and 6th overall in division one teams. We had come into the day hoping to finish 3rd and had a rough start to our race today. Jonah did a wonderful job getting to the front of the race but many of our athletes got buried in the pack. Our 2 - 8 runners probably passed over 80 runners each during the race and that is having to do too much work during the race. We needed our pack to be about 10 seconds faster in the first mile and this would have led to 10 - 20 spots differnce at the finish of the race. Our 2 - 8 pack was a nice group but it needs to be closer to our #1 runner. Today provided a nice learning experience for our varsity squad and will be something we needed to learn before the end of the season. If we have it fixed by next week it will make a huge difference at the Midwest Invite. Jonah continued his solid season with a sixth place finish overall (4th in large schools) and will be the #2 returner to this meet next season.
Our JV team continues a great season. We were missing some key pieces to our squad (injuries and 8 runners in varsity) and new guys stepped in for the challenge. Nick H., Ryan W., and Joey D. led the charge today with Nick and Ryan holding on for the 6th and 7th finishes. Connor G-T had a great race to PR, earn a medal, and be a solid #4 runner for our JV today. Mason rounded out our top 5 and had plenty of company from John H and Max B during the race. Our team performed well against a very tough SPASH JV squad (3 of their runners were sub 18:00). I hope these guys learned something from today's race because we will see SPASH again in two weeks at Stoughton and if we have everyone healthy it will be fun to see if we can compete with them in two weeks.
Overall today had many positives, it was so nice to see so many Memorial faces in the crowd...a big THANK YOU to all the parents and relatives who made the trip to Wausau to support the squad. I hope every parent has the opportunity to get to a meet this year to see their son compete. I'm excited for the coming weeks and continue to encourage the boys to keep their academics, health, and running on the forefront of their minds.
SMILEY RESULTS
Division One Varsity - Overall
Division One Varsity - Large School
Division One JV
Pictures added to the Picasa Album
UPCOMING EVENTS
September 28th - Light of Life Walk ($5 to Coach Casey ASAP -- a fundraiser for cancer research that is a part of Homecoming Week festivities...we will be doing this as a team (required) parents and familes are welcome to join)
NEXT COMPETITION - September 24th (Saturday)
Midwest Invite - Janesville, WI
9:15am - Meet Begins
9:50am - Frosh/Soph Race (top 7 frosh/soph not on varsity) (2010 results)
11:00am - Varsity (top 7 runners) (2010 results)
12:10pm - JV (remainder of team) (2010 results)
12:55pm - Awards - JV and Frosh/Soph - top 20 get medals -- Varsity - top 30 get medals
***We will make a final decision on Saturday but most likely will stop for food on the way home from Janesville...so bring $$$
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