On a warm late summer/early fall morning our JMM Spartans went out and raced against some of the states top competition. We saw an epic battle between SPASH (state #1) and Madison LaFollette (state #2) and saw how the depth of their teams carried into the JV race. Our team is very capable of matching the depth of these programs. The next step for our squad is taking on the intense physical and mental committment to have runners who can consistently be under 17:00 for 5k. It is not an overnight task or something that "just happens" the boys at SPASH and LaFollette have put in many miles and hours of work to get their varsity programs at this level. As we bring our 2012 campaign to a close I look forward to seeing our teams compete at their bests at Conference (Sat 10/13) and/or Sectionals (Sat 10/20). I hope our Seniors are able to finish their cross country careers with races they are proud of and leave our underclassmen with many memories. I hope our underclassmen can set themselves up to take this team forward.
The JV team started off the meet on Saturday with an impressive 3rd place finish. We have our work cut out for us to compete with LaFollette the next two weeks but I think we can get the better of them yet this year. Hans H and Jacob R led our team with their 10th and 11th place finishes. Ben B and John H moved through the crowd well finishing in the top 20 team scorers. Benton DD stepped up today as our #5 runner on JV and helped solidify our 3rd place team finish. The warm weather made it a little difficult to PR today but we still had 6 PRs from Caleb H, Nathan L, Alex VB, Zach H, Jack K, and Connor S. I continue to be impressed by our freshman group of athletes. I really like how hard this group works at practice and how they compete in meets. This is not something we can take for granted and I know if we stick with this competitive attitude this group will see big things in the coming three years at Memorial. Our depth in JV is very solid and the next step for these kids is taking it to the next level in training and focus to be the next JMM varsity athletes.
Our varsity squad ran today again with out Jonah and needless to say we miss having him in the race. As a team we must move forward and hope that we put ourselves in the right place so when he comes back the pieces all just fall into place. Today we had a nice group working together and the desire is to move this group about 15 - 20 seconds forward to meet our end of the season hopes (again 15 seconds over a 5k race is just 5 seconds faster per mile). We will see Middleton and Verona in two weeks and our top guys were less than 10 seconds away from their competitors they need to beat. Our goals are still within sight for this group as we move into the closing weeks. Bryce H and Tyler M again led this group at the end today both achieving top 30 finishes. James A and Connor GT finished together in 44th and 45th and Nick H rounded out our scoring five with his 52 place finish. Mason R gained some more valuable experience in varsity competition and Ryan W filled out our varsity squad nicely. This group will see marked improvements in the coming weeks as we prepare for our championship series run. Additionally, today we beat conference foes Madison East and Janesville Parker. Even as we work out the kinks we are beating many schools varsity squads and competing with some of our toughest conference and sectional foes.
STOUGHTON RESULTS
JV
Varsity
UPCOMING EVENTS
September 30th (Sunday) - Haunted Hustle Packet Stuffing (We still could use about 5 more volunteers)
2:00pm - 3:15pm in Greenway Station (empty store next to Justice Girls Clothing)
NEXT COMPETITION
City Championships - Friday October 5th
Yahara Cross Country Course (the Dump) - Madison, WI
Boys JV - 4:00pm
Boys Varsity - 5:00pm (2011 results)
ALL - CITY BANQUET @ Pizza Oven on Monona Dr (immediately following meet)
$6/per person (payable at restaurant) for all you can eat/drink pizza, bread sticks, and drinks
Due to All - City Banquet THERE IS NO RETURN BUS FROM CITY CHAMPIONSHIPS
Athletes must stay until after the varsity race and team cool down before departing (no exceptions)
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