On a warm Friday evening the best runners from the Madison area converged on Lake Farm County Park for the annual running of the Madison City Championships. The cloud cover arrived just as races were beginning and their may have been a sprinkle in the air but it was a warm October afternoon. Memorial took on West, LaFollette, East, & Edgewood for 2021 bragging rights and the start to our championship season. Our runners were ready to go and ran great on the day as we saw 15 runners race to season or lifetime PRs. The varsity race saw us take down LaFollette (who had beaten us at Stoughton & Midwest) and put Jake Z and Mick S on the 1st team All-City Team. Our JV had the City Champion in Jakob M and the City Runner Up in Rees H and just missed pulling off the victory by 2 points but made great strides on a team that had beat us pretty handily earlier in the year...we get one more shot at them in the Big 8 race. Overall it was a good day for the Spartans and a nice start to the weekends Homecoming events.
The varsity race saw a patient first mile and everyone was represented early in the race. As things stretched out Jake Z and Mick S represented JMM in the lead group. Jake Z had a great finish securing City Runner Up honors while Mick's kick got him all the way back into the top 5 and earning All-City 1st team honors. AJ ran tough today just missing out on All-City finishing in 11th. Henry ran a PR of 17:25 to earn a top 15 finish. He was followed by soph Jonathan B in a PR of 17:42 and freshman Nick Z also in a lifetime best of 17:43. Freshman Finn rounded out our top 7 on the day with his finish in 23rd. It is important to win individual battles in a small race like today's City meet. We accomplished that with LaFollette but couldn't quite match the depth of West. We have some stiff competition again next week at the Big 8 Championships but how our team performed today shows that we are ready to run fast and compete for every spot down the stretch. Looking forward to the last couple weeks of the season.
The JV race was a two team competition as we tried to match the depth of West. When we raced against them at Midwest they placed 4 runners before our #1 and beat us by over 70 points. Today we were ready to race up front better and seniors Jakob M & Rees H led the charge. Jakob pulled away midrace to win the JV City Championship in 17:54 giving JMM back to back JV City Champs. Rees finished with a great kick to earn his Runner Up finish in sub 18 as well, crossing the line in 17:58. Then the battle began as West's pack was right on Rees's tail. Tommy S had a great race running a lifetime PR of 18:12 finishing 8th and Alvaro battled for every spot along the way giving us 4 finishers in the top 10. Charlie M charged hard in the end crossing the line in 15th. In the end only 2 points separated first and second place but West earned the victory today. I was excited to see our improvement as a team since Midwest and glad we get one more shot at the Big 8 meet. Felipe R and Jack G will join these top 5 to compete in the JV1 race at next week's Big 8 championship. Our JV kids had lots of good races as many came close to or beat their season PRs including: Derek R (20:31), Daleep S (26:15), Peter S (19:56), Logan S (19:27), Fred S (21:38), Alex V (22:32), Sai A (23:55), David B (21:52), Liam B (22:47), Jack C (23:56), and PJ M (21:01). These guys are running fast at the right time of the season and we hope to get everyone one more fast race at Sheehan Park next week at Conference. Make sure to get some good sleep this week, take care of your body, and eat/hydrate well so we can put one more good effort out there with our JV runners. JMM CC Every Runner, Every Run, Every Day!
NEXT COMPETITION
Saturday October 16th
Big 8 Conference Championships @ Sun Prairie - Sheehan Park - Sun Prairie, WI
Bus - 7:30am
9:30am - First Race
1:00pm - Awards - top 15 individuals
**We will NOT stop to eat...plan accordingly. We should return to JMM around 2:00pm
WIAA Regulations state NO DOGS at events...please help out with this by leaving your pets at home.
NEWS & NOTES
--> Captains will be collecting money this week for coaches gifts & team shirts...more info to be posted
--> Monday practice - right after school = finished by 5:15pm (practices this week will be a little shorter for JV runners...use this extra time to get caught up on school work and get extra rest)
--> JV Runners will have a required practice on Monday Oct 18th @ 2:45pm...uniforms & other checked out items must be returned at this time. Only varsity runners preparing for Sectionals will have required practice the rest of the week of Oct 18th
