Great work today by every Memorial Athlete! It is fun to be a Spartan when your team competes like we did today. We scored a lower score in every race this season compared to last season. We continue to close the gap on West in the JV races and I expect a breakthrough in these events in the near future. Our varsity finished a solid 4th place to the #2, #4, & #8 teams in the state. I'm very proud of every runner today and I look forward to seeing this tradition grow both in the classroom and on the race course. Seniors will always be a part of the JMM CC program and I hope they stay involved as alumni in both running and cheering on the team. Under classmen are the future of our program and it begins today. The choices we make this off season will determine how well next season will go. Our varsity will be competing at the Dump next Saturday attempting to qualify for State and I hope every athlete makes it to the meet to cheer on our team.
JV2 got things rolling for us today with a great performance. This race went out faster then all of the other races into the wind and it showed the excitement of every runner. The fast start allowed 19 of our runners to end the season with PRs. We had many runners who hoped to break up West's domination...I applaud the effort and hope we keep this hungry attitude into future seasons. James A. was able to break up West's group and finished a strong 4th in his first race back from injury. Tyler M, John H, and Max B all helped out with top 15 finishes and Stefan rounded out our top 5 just missing out on a conference ribbon but had a great race to be a scorer. It was fun to see this group compete we had PRs from Garner, Tyler, James, Jacob, Luke, John, Evan, Ben, Michael, Joe, Nathan, Franco, Josh, Brian, Brendon, Ben, and Kevin. Our freshman continued to improve and will be fun to watch over the coming years. I hope this group sticks together and is able to dedicate themselves to running. Our seniors have been a pleasure to have with us this season and I hope all find a way to be active in their future adventures.
The JV1 race got out slow (to put it politely) our guys were in great position and raced an excellent second half of the race. The slow start meant many guys were close to their PRs. Ryan had another great conference meet to lead the way as he and Nick both cracked the top 10. Joey D, Connor GT, and Thejas battled down the finish line with the senior Joey grabbing that top 15 spot but Connor and Thejas will be back for big things at these conference meets. Mason and Andy helped round out a great performance by our JV team. We beat Middleton JV who just two weeks ago beat us at the Stoughton meet. We have five underclassmen in this group who will be battling for a varsity spot next season and looking to locked down the JV team as a contender for a JV Conference championship in 2012.
Our varsity new what we had to do today to accomplish our team goal and not everything played out like we thought it would but our team took care of business. We get to come back one more time this season and will take what we learned over the last two weeks to put our best foot forward at Sectionals. Today Jonah was with the lead pack the whole way and finished a strong 5th place continueing to establish himself as one of the Conference/States elite runners. Jordan B. had a great finish to move from being just outside the top 15 to finishing on the second team all conference team with his 12th place finish. Ben A and Sam B ran well to be solid #3 and #4 runners for our team. Bryce and Brad hope to close up the gap a little next week but held on to provide a low enough score for our #5 for our team to finish in 4th place. Hunter is still battling a virus and we are hoping he can be healthy and back to his oldself by next week. We will go out and put our best foot forward and see where the chips fall. Keep doing what we do best and things will go well.
BIG 8 RESULTS
VarsityJV1JV2MONDAY PRACTICE FOR ALL ATHLETES - Athletes who are done competing will just meet with Coach Casey and recieve end of the year handouts and information. Athletes will not make the buses home, so should plan for transportation around 4:15 - 4:30.
Athletes who have not yet turned in their uniforms should do so on Monday. Also, athletes who have not yet given their captains $5 yet should do so ASAP (Thanksgiving baskets and Coach gifts)
NEXT COMPETITION
Sectionals @ Yahara Course (the Dump)
Saturday October 22nd
Girls Race 11:00
Boys Race 11:45
Top two teams and top five individuals advance to state
EVERYONE SHOULD COME OUT AND CHEER ON THE TEAMS
A 30 minute frost delay gave way to beautiful October weather for the 99th Annual WIAA State Boys Cross Country Championships. JMM was represented this year by Jonah W. who put himself in a great place early on in the race, moved up well in the middle of the race, and had an amazing kick at the end of the race to finish 13th overall. Jonah ran very relaxed and executed a great race plan which allowed him to have a successful state meet. Jonah was 13th overall and will be the 6th place returner (all 5 are juniors ahead of him) for next years state meet. It was great to see some Memorial faces in the crowd cheering with the masses and Jonah commented about hearing many encouraging words from our fans. It was also interesting to see how the Big Eight Conference performed. The three teams that beat us as the conference meet finished 2nd, 4th, and 6th at state. If we continue to improve to be able to compete with the other teams in our area it will guarantee positive results for our team at state. Jonah returns for one more CC season and looks forward to competing at state as a team next year. We bring back plenty of kids with varsity experience but we need to make some big steps forward in our off-season training to compete at the state level year in and year out. Lets make plans on being back in Wisconsin Rapids on October 27th, 2012.
