Verona Invite - Varsity = 3rd JV = 2nd

Great start to the 2013 season! The Madison Memorial boys cross country team was greeted Saturday morning by some unexpected heat and humidity as the temperatures shot through the 80's. The Verona Invitational marked our first competition against teams from our conference, sectional, and the state. We see some very talented teams right away and get to learn where our team stands as we head into the rest of the season. Today's meet was a great performance by our team and sets us up to be very competitive against all the teams in our conference and sectional. We also learned that there are many teams who are going to be just as good as us all year long and we need to continue to improve as a team to stay towards the front of the races. Hopefully we learned a lot from today's meet that we can take into future competitions. Not everyone was happy with their races and that is ok if we make the appropriate changes for the future. We had 18 new PRs on a tough course in hot conditions. I look forward to more PRs as we get some better weather next week.

Our varsity team started the meet off with a very strong 3rd place finish overall in the team competition. We were beat by Madison West (last year's state champions) and Madison LaFollette (last year's state runner ups) but were able to beat four teams who competed at state last season. (Baraboo, Janesville Craig, Aquinas D2, and Mauston D2). We also won close battles with Verona and Middleton who will be strong competition all season. Our varsity was led by Bryce H and James A as both earned top 20 finishes. Brad G and Jacob R had very nice second halves of the race and continued to close the gap up to the top guys as Sam B rounded out our scoring five runners with his top 40 finish. It was nice to see all of our scoring athletes earn medals on the day. Ben B and Benton DD both earned valuable racing experience in their first varsity races this season. Our team score of 127 points and our 3rd place finish are the best we have ever done at the Verona meet. Our athletes in this race really competed hard throughout the entire race and although not everyone was happy with their individual results they all contributed to an amazing team result. We will see both West and LaFollette plenty of times this year and we will look to close the gap on them and widen the gap on the likes of Verona, Baraboo, and Middleton.

The jv team kept the momentum going for the Spartans with a solid 2nd place finish. The jv was led by a mix of youth and experience. Seniors Connor GT and Mason R joined with freshmen Luke V and Ty B and sophomores Rory S, Trevor R, and Gabe B to make up the scoring seven on this day. It took a 19:21 to make our scoring jv team this season which is over 30 seconds better than any season before at this meet. Our depth is a huge strength for us and I look forward to seeing more athletes joining this strong jv group. Madison West ran a solid race against us today and I hope we are able to continue to cut into that group even by Thursday when we race against them again. We will improve over the coming days, weeks, and months if we continue to work hard at practice, keep our goals in our mind, take care of business in the classroom, and rest & stay healthy. Big things are still in our future this season.

VERONA RESULTS
Boys Varsity
Boys JV

Photos Added to the 2013 CC Photo Album (click on link in right margin)

UPCOMING EVENTS
September 8th - Ironman Volunteering 12 - 4pm or 4 - 8pm (Lot 60 on UW Campus)
September 14th - Team Practice - 8:00am @ Elver Park (NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE)
September 20th - Team Pictures

NEXT COMPETITION
West Invite - Thurs Sept 12th
@ Yahara Cross Country Course (The Dump)
Early Release - 1:45pm Bus - 2:00pm
4:00pm - Meet Begins
4:30pm - Boys JV (2012 Results)
5:30pm - Boys Varsity (2012 Results)
6:00pm - Awards (Varsity = 2 teams and 1 - 25 individually, JV = 1 - 20 individually)