West Invite - Varsity = 3rd JV = 2nd

Tonight our team continued to take a step forward towards our season goals. We closed the gap on some teams from last week but we still have lots of room for improvement. This was our first of four (five for varsity) races at Yahara Cross Country Course and I feel we got off to a good start. Those who were not happy with their race tonight can make changes and adjustments. We need to be students of our races and learn from each one to improve throughout the rest of the season. Our team will be back at the dump on Tuesday for the Big 8 Grade Level Challenge and today gives me a positive outlook towards Tuesday. Lets make sure we put in some positive work in the coming days and be ready to compete against the Big 8 on Tuesday.

The JV started the meet off for us on a positive note today. We had many guys who got in the lead group right away and put themselves in a great position to run well. The West athletes made a strong move in the second mile that we need to be able to respond to but we still had our top guys hold on to perform well. Hans led our JV group with a solid 2nd place finish and a 34 second PR from last week. On Saturday we had no runners in West's top 5 and our 5th guy was 59 seconds behind West's. Today we had one runner in West's top 5 (right behind their #1 runner) and our 5th runner was only 27 seconds behind West's. Our top 5 today was Hans H, Nick H, Jacob R, Ben B, and Connor K and were seperated by 49 seconds. We want to get this gap to less than 30 seconds (West's #1 - #5 gap today was 26 seconds) to be competitive against all teams we see this season. We saw another 25 PRs tonight and had large improvements by Michael M (1:04), Isaac T (1:02), Colin P (3:07), and Sam Z (1:04). Benton DD was our top frosh again tonight but was joined by Trevor R in the sub 21 minute club. Matt J and Austin W are getting close and we are seeing some great performances from this group. Our freshman group is working really hard at practice everyday and I can't wait to see how much MORE time they will continue to drop the rest of the season. Ben B led the sophomore group tonight with his first sub 19 minute race close behind him were Calder B and Sam K who are under the 20 minute mark and are ready to join Ben in the sub 19 group. We have a lot of new faces in this group and I look forward to seeing these athletes grow as cross country runners.

Our varsity team knew we were in for a battle tonight with West and Wisconsin Lutheran (D2 state champs) and the race didn't dissappoint. We closed the gap on West from the Verona Invite and finished a strong 3rd place to these teams. Our number two runner was 50 seconds behind West's number four runner on Saturday and today it was down to 17 seconds. Jonah was able to break up their top 3 today which was an improvement and we need to work our pack to run with West's number 4 runner. Jonah led the way with a 5th place finish and Bryce just missed out on a top ten finish and had a nice PR for 13th. The gap from 1 to 2 today was 41 seconds and fits into our goal for the season but we need to close up the gap to Bryce with our other guys as our 1-5 gap was 1:15 and we need this to be under 1:00. Our hope is to have 5 runners (or more) under 17:30 on this course by the end of the season and I think we are in position to accomplish this. Sam B and James A finished 21st and 22nd to earn medals and Connor G-T rouned out our top 5 with a PR of his own. Tyler M was sub 18 and Ryan W just missed, we had hoped to have seven guys under 18:00 today and instead we had 8 guys under 18:02. Last year our #5 runner was 18:06 so this is a really nice improvement but we know how competitive our Conference and Sectional will be this season so we are going to continue to look for improvement. In 2009 (last team to go to state) we had 5 guys under 18:00 at the West Invite and put 7 guys under 17:30 at the City meet (our last meet at Yahara that season) so our goals are well with in reach if we stay healthy and continue to work hard at practice.

Pictures have been added to the Picasa Album

WEST RESULTS
JV
Varsity

UPCOMING EVENTS
September 8th - Team Practice - 8:00am @ Elver
September 9th - Ironman Volunteering - 12 - 4pm or 4 - 8pm @ Lot 60 on UW Campus
September 10th - Fall Sports Potluck - 6:00pm @ School Cafeteria
September 12th - Athletic Code Meeting - 7:00pm @ School Gym - ALL Athletes AND Parents

NEXT COMPETITION
Big 8 Grade Level Challenge - September 11th (Tues)
@ Yahara Cross Country Course (the Dump)
4:30pm - Frosh/Soph Boys (2011 Frosh / 2011 Soph)
5:00pm - Frosh/Soph Girls
5:30pm - Junior/Senior Boys (2011 Junior / 2011 Senior)
6:00pm - Junior/Senior Girls
6:45pm - Awards Ceremony (Team Trophy and top 5 individual in each grade level)
(2011 Overall and Team Results)