Madison Memorial CC: Big Eight Grade Level Challenge

The Madison Memorial Boys Cross Country team took on the Big Eight Conference Tuesday night at the Yahara Cross Country Course competing in the annual Grade Level Challenge. This meet is slightly different then most meets we attend as the athletes competed and were scored against kids from their own grade regardless of JV or Varsity. This allows some new kids to run in the front of the race for the first time and others to be counted on for scoring for the team. The team score is based off of the top seven finishers from their grade level finish. To do well in a meet like this you need quality runners in all four races. Tonight the JMM squad rose to that challenge and performed great across all four grade levels. We placed 3rd with 46 points a ways behind LaFollette (26) and West (28) but outdistancing Sun Prairie (75). We scored athletes from the Freshman, Sophomore, and Senior races and all our scorers were 9th place or better. This meet gives us a good insight to where we stand against other Big 8 schools and how we will have a chance to compete with them at the end of the year. Our hope is that the JMM athletes will put in more work, stay healthier, and be eligible to make bigger gains in the next month before we meet back up at the Big Eight Conference Championships.

Before the meet we talked about how it would be hard to PR at tonight's meet because we had just ran on this same course Thursday night and might not see much improvement in five days. Last year when we had these same circumstances we had 15 PRs in the Grade Level meet...this year we had 32 PRs!!! The frosh/soph started us off on the night with a great race setting 22 of those PRs. Many athletes who had just PRed on Tuesday did it again tonight PRing by anywhere from 1 second to over 1 minute and 30 seconds. The sophomores were led by Benton DD as he placed 4th and Rory S who scored for the team with his 9th place finish. The group also had PRs from Gabe B (:13), Trevor R (:10), and Austin W (:02). The freshman were led by Ty B (who joined the sub 18:00 club with a :16 PR) with his 7th place finish. This group had PR's by Matt B (:02), Jonas B (:06) joining the sub 19:00 club, Davis B (1:05), Henry C (:27), Dominic G (:02), Casey GT (:20) joining the sub 19:00 club, Jansen H (:10), Ben K (:44), Nathan K (:19), Chris M (:32), Rory M (:13), Zaid N (:12), Jacob T (:33), Alec W (1:39), Nathan W (:27), and Jack Z (:09). This young group of athletes is exciting to watch race. We look forward to seeing what these kids can not only do the remainder of this season but over the next 2 - 3 years. Keep up the great work and keep pursuing your goals.

The junior/senior race is always very competitive as we seem some of the top runners in the state competing in our conference. Our athletes rose to the challenge and we saw another 10 PRs in this race along with a couple other season bests. The juniors were led by Ben B (:01) who finished 11th in the most difficult race of the meet, as Ben was our second best finisher based off of time but did not score for the team in this meet. The Juniors also saw PRs by Jack G (:09), Justin H (:17), Liam M (:14) joining the sub 19:00 club, and Ben S (:13). In the senior race Bryce H competed very strongly and led the team with his 2nd place finish. He was joined by Jacob R in 7th, Brad G in 8th, and Sam B in 9th as scorers for the team. The seniors had PRs by Will B (:03), Sam R (:05), Sam Sh (1:27), and Sam Sz (:10). These athletes have led us year in and year out and continue to be a strength of our team. We look forward to these athletes making the most of every moment in the coming weeks to get the most of this season.

GRADE LEVEL RESULTS
Team Results

UPCOMING EVENTS
FRIDAY - Sept 20th - TEAM PICTURES!!!! (bring both uniform top & bottom)

NEXT COMPETITION
Smiley Invitational

Saturday September 21st

American Legion GC - Wausau, WI

Bus Time - 5:30am (note...15 minutes earlier!!!...set two alarms)