An overcast and drizzly morning at Leeson Park in Beloit was the setting for the most competitive conference championship in the state this year. The Big Eight Conference has had seven different teams ranked on the boys side of competition at one point or another during the 2014 season. Currently Madison West and Madison LaFollette occupy the top two spots in the state and they are joined in the ranking by Middleton, Sun Prairie, & JMM. Additionally, Verona & Janesville Craig have spent time in the top 20 over the season. This type of competition brings about great times and fast paced exciting races but can be difficult to judge a season's success. Little mistakes are amplified in this setting and there is on room for error. Learning how to compete in this type of environment is difficult but a great life lesson for all the boys who competed today. Our team ran well today making proud the current, past, & future Madison Memorial Spartans.
The varsity squad started off the morning with the first race of the day. The pace was led by the defending WIAA individual state champion (Olin H) and state runner-up (Ryan N) causing a fast first mile. Luke V & Jonas B reacted well to this pace while our 2nd pack needed to be out a little faster to stay in contact with the Middleton & Sun Prairie packs. Luke & Jonas positioned themselves in the top 25 early and then looked to compete for an All Conference top 15 finish. Luke led the way with a strong finish securing him 13th place and a 2nd team All-Conference. Jonas held on for a 22nd place finish and a nice PR of 16:44. The pack of Casey GT, Rory S, Joe H, Jack Z, & Ben B moved up throughout the race but couldn't quite bridge the gap to that next group. Casey finished 32nd with Rory right behind him in 34th. Joe rounded out the scoring 5 with his 41st place finish. Our 1 - 5 gap was 42 seconds and will need to be under 25 seconds for us to beat the likes of Middleton & Sun Prairie. Jack Z had a nice first race on varsity and we hope to see him in this role often next season. Ben B completed our varsity squad which had a team average of 16:57 on the day. Not too many teams in the state can have a team average time of 16:57 and have to settle for a 6th place conference finish. The varsity has one more week left of competition and one more shot at Middleton & Sun Prairie.
The second race of the day was the JV1 race that looked to be a dual between Madison West & Madison Memorial. Our team ran an amazing race there was not much else they could have done better. It was a tight race throughout (about a 3 point spread at 1 mile and a 1 point spread at 2 mile) but Madison West just had too much left in the tank during the finishing straight away as they pulled away for a 15 point victory. This was the closest we came to West this year and a big closing of the gap from the first meet of the year we they dominated us by almost 40 points. Our JV team only lost to the Madison West squad all year long and should be very proud of their season. Hopefully we can do the work this off season to regain the Big 8 JV Championship that we won last season. Our JV group was led by a PR performance from Austin W as he finished in 2nd place with a 17:01. He was joined in the top 10 by Trevor R who finished 6th. All five scorers for Memorial finished in the top 15 as Joel F (11th), Ty B (13th), & Calder B (14th) quickly followed next. The JV1 squad was rounded out by Dom G in 17:39 and Josh L in 17:49. This group along with Ben T in JV2 and our varsity combined for 15 runners under 18:00 minutes today. This is our second largest total in school history only behind last season 17 runners. Could we put 20 runners under 18:00 at the conference meet next year??
The final boys race was the JV2 race and again our biggest competition of the day was Madison West. Unfortunately in the JV2 race we were just not deep enough this year to be competitive with the likes of Madison West. The top 14 runners were all West & Memorial the only problem was that 9 of them were West and only 5 were Memorial. Only a season ago it was JMM's depth displayed in this race. The big difference between West & Memorial's JV2 runners this year was not their performance during the season but the amount of work that was done during the off season. Can our JV2 runners be willing to do the work between now and 2015? JMM JV2 finishers from last season Joe H & Casey GT put in a ton of work to get to varsity this year and Austin W, Jack Z, Trevor R, Calder B, & Dom G all moved up to JV1. The potential is in this group we can and should be able to compete and/or beat in this race next season. Today we were led by Ben T (6th) and Zach H (9th) who earned top 10 finishes. Benton DD, Caleb S, & Alex V ran great stepping up to be our top five on the day. Rounding out our scoring seven were Jared G & Gabe B. This group led the way on PRs for the day as the following athletes finished the season with lifetime PRs: Jake H (:26), Justin H (:25), Michael L (:10), Nathan L (:30), Dylan R (:41), Caleb S (:08), Alex V (:04), Trevor R (:11), Austin W (:20), Matt B (:22), Jonas B (:07), Henry C (:03), Jacob T (:11), Jack T (1:23), Alec W (:10), Chris X (:20), Adrian A (:26), Joey C (:23), Stryder C (:08), Will G (1:19), Riley H (:37), Grant J (:01), Sam M (:19), Nathan S (:30), Andy T (:43), Gerry V (2:27), & Kevin Y (:02).
Today was a great finish to another amazing season for our JV runners. Next week everyone should come out and cheer on our varsity as they try to earn one more meet for the season. Remember to finish the quarter strong and take care of your grades this school year. Continue to build upon the successes of this season and carry the lessons you have learned into your future endeavors. Best of luck to our seniors and hope to see all the underclassmen back and better than ever in the future.
CONFERENCE MEET RESULTS
Varsity
Junior Varsity 1
Junior Varsity 2
Freshman Joel F won the 2014 Rock-Paper-Scissors championship over Senior Jack G
You can still order team clothing HERE
NEXT COMPETITION
Sectional @ DeForest HS
Saturday October 25th
Bus Time - 8:45am
11:00am - Boys Varsity (2013 Results)
11:45am - Girls Varsity
12:30pm - Awards Ceremony - Top 2 teams & 5 individuals not on teams qualify for state
Monday October 20th - Mandatory Team Meeting for ALL athletes - 3:45 - 4:15pm
Athletes will receive important end of the season information -- must attend!
If you have not turned in your uniform yet...BRING IT MONDAY!
If you haven't given the captains $10 for end of year gifts & Thanksgiving Baskets...BRING IT MONDAY!
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