Verona Invite - Varsity = 9th, JV = 20th

Will L-S finishes 4th in 16:13

A brisk fall morning greeted the Spartans as they headed to their first official meet of the 2025 season. The Madison Memorial boys joined 34 other teams from around the state of Wisconsin to compete on the Verona cross country course. Our team was looking to continue our improvement from our intrasquad and take a step forward from last season. The varsity race started off the day where our team placed 9th out of 34 teams improving upon our 18th place finish from last year. As for the JV we finished in 20th the same as last year but our times were much improved but shows the room we have for improvement with the depth of our team. As we continue to get experience in races we hope to see our JV runners continue to close the gap on our varsity and show some of our strength in numbers.

The varsity team was led by Will L-S who spent the majority of the race at the front of the pack contending with the leaders throughout. Will ran a great race earning a 4th place finish with his time of 16:13. Berndt R made a hard push through the hordes of runners to finish in 42nd place. Ian G ran a PR to finish as our #3 runner and he was closely followed by Max B who also ran a PR in 18:11. Paul K continues to show steady improvement breaking 19 minutes for the first time. Anthony L had a strong showing as our #6 runner and Bowen not only went under 20 minutes for the first time but crushed it with a time of 19:31. I'm excited to see this group continue to cut down the gaps between runners and showing a good job of finishing races hard. Each week is an improvement and we will return to this course in a month and a half for the Sectional championships.

Mitchell S led our JV squad in a very deep and competitive Verona Invite. Patrick H was our top freshman on the day running a PR of 21:07. Andy E ran a great race improving upon his Intrasquad time. Sophomores Grey H and Isaac A both opened their seasons with sub 23 minute performances, rounding out our scoring JV five. Kaiden S had a nice opener too while Jacob S had an amazing 2 minute lifetime best PR. Other lifetime PRs turned in on the day go to Westley, Ethan P, and Miles D. While Skylar, Brayden, and Christian all set lifetime PRs by finishing their first 5k cross country races as Spartans. Many improvements were made from Elver to Verona and the JV guys are looking forward to getting to a Monona golf course with more rolling hills than steep climbs and opportunities for fast times and new PRs. If this group keeps working hard at practices and challenging themselves in workouts, their will be lots of happy fast races in their future.

RESULTS
All races
Varsity Boys
JV Boys

NEXT COMPETITION
Saturday September 13th
Monona Grove Invitational @ Monona GC (Course)
Bus - 7:00am
8:30am - First Race
9:00am - Boys Varsity (2024 Results) (Lane 15)
10:20am - Boys JV (2024 Results) (Lane 15)
11:40am - Awards - top 2 teams and 15 individuals

**We will NOT stop to eat on the way home...athletes can go out to eat as a team after bus drop off

Approximate return to Madison Memorial will be 12:30pm

We will be using the fieldhouse parking lot for drop off/pick up
SPECTATOR PARKING = easiest parking is at Monona Grove HS which is North of the golf course by about .25 mile....and then walking over to the course...leave yourself time

NEWS & NOTES

- Stay on top of your school work...don't let attendance or grades become an issue...ask coaches/upperclassmen if you need help.

- Memorial After School Dinner Program - begins 9/8 - athletes can stop in the cafeteria after practice and pick up a free school dinner

- Team chocolate milk - $10 (and bring your own cup)
- Clothing order #1 was delivered...make sure to put names into clothing items
- Snap Raise...great job so far!! Those of you working towards prizes...you still have 3 weeks to fundraise
- 9/12 (Fri) - Uniform handout for athletes competing at MG who still need uniform