City Championships - Varsity = 4th, JV = 2nd

The course was wet, the sky was overcast, but the competition was stellar as always at the Madison City Championships. There is no lack of talent in running at the 5 city schools and the meet showcased the runners on wet muddy cross country course today. The course held up better then expected and assuming the rain ever stops in Madison will be our location for our next two meets. Lake Farm Park is not the most difficult course we run on and gives runners who are ready to run their best at the end of the year a chance to finish the season with a PR. 13 season best times were run on Friday in the muck & mire and all are hoping the course dries out in time for the Big 8 Championships. Today our varsity ran to a 4th place finish narrowly missing out on 3rd while our JV kids ran strong to finish 2nd. We turn our focus to Big 8 and a strong finish to the season.

The varsity race was the first of the day and the runners were tentative in the first mile to see how the course would hold up to the pounding. The race really started going in the second mile and our guys hung in there for quite a while. We missed out on getting anyone on the All-City team (top 10) but had great finishes by Aidan P (17:20 - 12th) and Imaad S (17:21 - 13th) to lead our team. Our 1 - 5 gap with :42 seconds and we need this to be under 30 seconds with our lack of a single digit scorer. If we make this improvement at Big 8s it could be a huge help in our team place. Today alone a 1 point swing would have seen us ahead of East (Could you pass one more person?). Dylan A (17:39) finished in 20th while Aidan S (17:51) also broke 18:00 earning a 24th place finish. Jacob W in his first varsity race finish as our #5 in 18:02. Cole W (18:08 - 27th) and Peter B (18:11 - 28th) rounded out our varsity today. Our team gets one more shot at East next week at the Big 8 and will need a strong group showing to take down this good team. We ran 3 sophomores, 2 juniors, and 2 seniors today...there is a lot of talent coming back to this meet for JMM next year but we have to step up and do the work to compete with the strong teams of West and LaFollette.

Our JV team looked to chase down West in the JV race and we took our first step by breaking up their top 5 runners. Today, Peter S (5th - 17:51) was able to break that group up and right on his heels earning top 10 finishes were Peter V (6th - 17:59), Sam S (8th - 18:03), and Avery G (18:11 - 10). We have our work cut out to try to beat them at Conference but it is possible and even if we can't, if we run that well we can earn a top 2 finish next week. Today our 5th was Neil in 18:19 giving us a spread of 28 seconds...to win conference we need to be about 10 - 15 seconds faster and have a 15 second spread...difficult but doable by this group. Casey W (12th - 18:20) and Joey C (18:31 - 18th) rounded out our JV1 which is running well at the right time of year Our JV2 next week will be giving a moment in the spotlight with their own race at Conference. JV2 has a chance to win Big 8s or finish top 2 with just a little bit of improvement. They saw some great PRs in this group including Dhruv B (19:49), Alex T (20:19), Matthew B (20:34), Jackson P (22:00), and Thomas L (22:01). Also, Alex B (22:52), Kaine J (23:33), and Gabe M (23:34) showed great teamwork today as they all hoped to break 24 minutes for the first time...not only did they do it, they crushed it...time for a new goal. Final week, time to rest up and go hard one last time...leave everything on the course this season and go home smiling.

RESULTS
Boys Varsity & JV

NEXT MEET
Saturday October 13th
Big 8 Conference Meet @ Lake Farm County Park
JMM HOSTS - Sign Up to help out
7:30am - Bus Departs
9:30am - Boys Varsity (2017 Results)
10:35am - Boys JV1 (2017 Results)
11:40am - Boys JV2 (2017 Resutls)
1:00pm - Awards (top 15 in varsity get medals, top 15 in jv1  & jv2 get recognition)
**ALL athletes are expected to stay for the end of the meet and cheer on every runner...last meet of the year, we can cheer until the last runner finishes!!

JV Athletes will turn in uniforms at practice on Monday October 15th

NEWS & NOTES
Monday October 15th - MANDATORY Team Meeting 3:45pm - 4:15pm - Lower Team Room
Athletes will receive end of year information. JV runners will turn in uniforms.
EVERYONE MUST ATTEND

$10 to Captains for Coaches Gifts/Thanksgiving Baskets