What is cross country? I get that question often...I think the easiest way to answer that question is show up at the American Legion Golf Course on September 17th and watch the Smiley Invitational. From an athlete standpoint...you wake up before the sun rises, ride on a bus for countless hours, overtake a golf course for running purposes, challenge your body on a "true" cross country course, compare yourself to runners from every part of the state, and then spend 3 hours celebrating all of this with your teammates watching movies & eating out for lunch. From a spectator & coach standpoint...you get to spend a beautiful fall morning outside enjoying the leaves changing and seeing thousands of people who are excited about cheering on runners. This meet has always been my one of my favorite meets from the time I competed here as an athlete to when Coach Paul and I decided to bring Madison Memorial to this meet in 2008. It turns the page to the second half of the season that will go by quickly and allows us to learn a lot about ourselves individually and as a team.
The meet started off with the varsity race where we were the defending champions taking on the #6 ranked SPASH team and the #8 Sun Prairie Cardinals. Our team was led by great races from Jonas B and Luke V who planted themselves in the top 5 early and went on to finish #2 and #4 overall in the meet. Jonas was the top large school d1 finisher and will forever be in the program of the Smiley Invitational (a meet in its 60th year). Having two low numbers like this will make our team a very formidable team throughout the season but we will need to move our #3, 4, & 5 runners closer to be a top ranked state team. Our gap of 1:06 between our #2 and 3 runners is too large (this should be our gap between #1 and 5 runners) and another :40 back to our #5 runner is why we're not able to beat Sun Prairie or SPASH. That being said the work that Jack Z, Joel F, and Jared G did to put 5 runners in under 18:05 was good enough to place our team 3rd out of 24 D1 schools. We know we can do better and that is what makes the 3rd place difficult to handle but hopefully that will get this group focused on improving the remainder of the season. Stryder and Elliot earned some valuable varsity racing experience and each race they have to learn from in varsity will make them a better competitor moving forward. I look forward to this group continuing to improve each race and seeing if we can improve upon our rank of 13th best boys team in the state.
The JV race shows off a team's depth and our depth has been hurt this year due to injury and illness. As we move forward it will be important that we continue to have new boys willing to step up and improve for us at each meet. It will be nice IF we get back some of our missing runners but in the meantime it will be important to get the most out of everybody who is racing. Chris X took great advantage of this Saturday leading the JV group with his 9th place finish. He was followed by Gavin H, Malcolm B, Davis B, & Will S putting 5 runners in the top 30. To compete with SPASH & Sun Prairie (which we will see again this season) we need to move this group forward about 15 seconds and close the gap from :36 down to less than :20....both things that we are very capable of doing. The JV group saw 15 lifetime PRs on a difficult Smiley course and shows that our hard work in practice is paying off. It will be important in the coming days that we stay healthy, take care of our bodies, and get SLEEP. As school and workouts will get very busy this week followed by homecoming and 2 meets next week. The end is near for our JV group and making through the coming days will be vital.
SMILEY RESULTS
Varsity D1 Combined
Varsity D1 Large Schools
JV D1 Combined
NEXT COMPETITION
Saturday September 24th
Midwest Invitational @ Blackhawk GC - Janesville
Bus - 6:45am
8:15am - Community Race 5k
9:05am - 1st HS Race - Girls
9:45am - Boys Frosh/Soph (top 7 non-varsity fr/so runners) (2015 Results)
10:55am - Boys Varsity (top 7 runners) (2015 Results)
12:10pm - Boys JV (all other eligible & healthy runners) (2015 Results)
12:45pm - Middle School 1mile Race (4th - 8th grade siblings/friends*) (2015 Results)
Awards - Fr/So - 2 teams & 20 individuals, Varsity - 3 teams & 30 individuals, JV - 20 individuals
* 4th - 8th graders who are siblings/friends of Memorial Athletes or attend Memorial feeder schools can compete in the 1mile cross country race at 12:45pm representing JMM....to be entered in the race, parents must contact Coach Casey (crhopp@hotmail.com) by Wed 9/21 before 6:00pm with athletes Name, Gender, Grade in School....(NO cost this year)...it is the responsibility of each family to provide transportation for their Middle School athlete(s) to and from the meet and provide their own race day attire*
UPCOMING EVENTS
Sept 28th (Wed) - Light of Life Walk - 6:00pm - 6:45pm @ JMM (required for athletes and families are welcome to join) - $5 donation to cancer research - turn in to Casey ASAP
NEWS & NOTES
CHANGE OF VENUE - Big 8 Conference Meet on October 15th will now be hosted at Verona HS
PSAT Testing - Memorial has scheduled their PSAT testing for October 15th....athletes wishing to take the PSAT should contact their counselor ASAP to sign up for an alternate location
Warm up shirts have arrived....please make sure to put your name in them
Bucket hats...I have 5 remaining
-
