Smiley Invitational - Varsity = 3rd, JV = 3rd

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

Big 8 Grade Level Challenge - 7th place

The rain returned to Lake Farm Park Tuesday prior to the Big 8 Grade Level Challenge and the course was wetter and muddier than it was on Saturday. We held out some of our top athletes due to injury and course conditions and we tested the depth of our team. The results are that we need to build the depth of our team to be able to reach our team goals. Hopefully this meet was a wake up call for our team as we enter the last month of the season. It is going to be important that we get healthy and stay healthy to compete at our best. Also, we need to take advantage of everyday to improve our fitness and learn how to race at our best. The potential is in this group of athletes but we will need better focus and execution the remainder of the season to reach our team goals.

The frosh/soph race led of the night and our group was led by Peter V who finished 14th in 18:49 and was 11th amongst sophomores. Our top freshman was Brett N who ran 19:26 to be the 13th best freshman in the meet. This group of runners saw 12 PRs set on the day and continue to improve with each meet. During the junior/senior race JMM's top finisher was Stryder C was 18th in the race in 17:56 and the 8th best junior finisher. He was closely followed by Jared G in 19th with a time of 18:00 and the 11th best senior on the day. We added 13 more PRs in the second race of the day. It was a difficult day to PR on a wet & muddy course but our guys were determined to run their best. This attitude is what will be needed in the remaining practices and meets to get our times faster.

BIG 8 GRADE LEVEL
All Results
All Results - Interactive

NEXT COMPETITION
Saturday September 17th
Smiley Invitational @ American Legion GC - Wausau, WI
Bus - 5:30am (DO NOT BE LATE)
8:30am - First Race
10:00am - 1st D1 Race (Girls)
11:10am - Boys Varsity (2015 results)
11:35am - Boys JV (2015 results)
12:00pm - Awards (Var - top 2 teams & 20 individuals, JV - top team & 20 individuals)
*** Bring $$$...we will stop to eat***
Bus will not return until about 4:30pm (or later)

NEWS & NOTES
- Big 8 Conference Meet hosting information has been changed ...we will update everyone when we know more
- Limited number of bucket hats remaining...$25 to Coach Casey until they are gone (7 left)
- No update on team long sleeve warm ups yet...as soon as we get them, we will get them out to the kids
- Tuesday reports begin this week...kids will need to complete them to be eligible to race every week
- Attendance....check IC regularly to make sure you don't have any unexcused class

Madison West Invitational - Varsity = 3rd, JV = 2nd

Saturday morning the JMM Spartans headed out to Lake Farm Park to compete in the Madison West Invitational. As the bus left the parking lot a steady drizzle turned to a light rain and the we all new that we would be running on a slick wet course. The team was prepared and although there weren't many large puddles there was plenty of mud and tough turns. Some guys slipped, others fell, and a few even got stung by wasps but overall our guys went out & competed and took a huge step forward from our Verona meet. The team is still not where we want to be as a team but we are continuing to improve and have another month to reach our season goals. The next month will be very important in how our season finishes. It will be important that we support each other, take good care of our bodies, go to class and do well in the classroom. This West Invite was a step in the right direction for our team and hopefully we learned from the experiences to come back here Tuesday night and keep improving.

The varsity race saw competition between state ranked Madison West & Monona Grove and our very own Spartans. Jonas and Luke did a great job of positioning themselves in the top group and competing very well on a slick course. Both guys were able to pull single digit cards for our team which will be a huge advantage for us moving into bigger meets later in the season. Our gap of 40 seconds between our #2 and #3 runners was too large and is where we lost to West and MG (by only 1 point). Our team will continue to improve as this group moves closer to the front. Today they were led by Casey GT who was followed closely by Jack Z and Joel F. The top 5 runners earned top 25 finishes on the day earning individual medals. Our gap of 1:03 from #1 to #5 is not bad but will need to improve to beat the likes of Madison West (who beat us by 23 points). The varsity was rounded out today by Elliot B and Ty B. I look forward to this group continuing to improve throughout the season.

The JV race ran after the rain got heavier and the course had already seen two other races. The boys handled the conditions well but according to the race director...the whole field took a wrong turn on the course causing the runners to run about 70 meters short of 5000 meters. Luckily we will be back here on Tuesday and guys who set PRs on Saturday can go out and set even better times on Tuesday. We got an up close look at what a really strong JV looks like on Saturday as West took the top 5 spots in the race to score a perfect 15 points. Our guys put in a great effort to break this group up but it wasn't meant to be this day. Our team finished a very strong 2nd today and hopefully we now have the motivation to go out and close the gap on West. We have been in this situation before and know what it will take to catch them by the end of the season. Our JV was led by Jared G and Stryder C who earned top 10 finishes. They were joined at the awards ceremony by Gavin H, Peter V, Chris X, and Davis B who also earned top 20 finishes. Our gap of :32 seconds from 1 - 5 is nice but we need to be able to move this whole group forward. This can happen over the next couple weeks and I look forward to see which of these athletes will also compete to make our varsity better. Some great improvement was seen in the JV group from Verona to this meet (although they weren't official PRs) and it is clear that the hard work is already starting to payoff. It will be important to keep up this hard week in the middle part of our season and KEEP OURSELVES HEALTHY.

WEST RESULTS
Varsity & JV

NEXT COMPETITION
Tuesday September 13th @ Lake Farm Park
Big 8 Grade Level Challenge (hosted by LaFollette)
Early Release - 1:45pm
Bus - 2:00pm
4:00pm - Boys Frosh/Soph race
5:20pm - Boys Junior/Senior race
7:00pm - Awards (top 5 individuals in each race and top 1 team)
2015 Results
***Bugs were bad on Saturday...maybe bring bug spray***
**Athletes can only leave with their parents...after all boys races are completed and team cool down is finished...thank you for helping us be a full supportive team**

UPCOMING EVENTS
Sept 11th (Sun) - Ironman Volunteering @ UW Lot 60 - 12pm - 4pm OR 4pm - 8pm
Sept 12th (Mon) - Team Pictures @ JMM - 3:45pm ***need uniform top AND bottom***

NEWS & NOTES
- Limited number of bucket hats remaining...$25 to Coach Casey until they are gone
- No update on team long sleeve warm ups yet...as soon as we get them, we will get them out to the kids
- Tuesday reports begin this week...kids will need to complete them to be eligible to race every week
- Attendance....check IC regularly to make sure you don't have any unexcused class
- We just learned this week that Madison East will be hosting the Big 8 Conference Meet on October 15th at Badger Prairie Park in Verona (instead of Lake Farm Park)...as we get more information we will make it available to families

Verona Invitational - Varsity = 13th, JV = 9th

Bad choices, missed practices, and injuries left only 40 of our 78 athletes competing at the Verona Invitational. If our team is going to reach its potential for this season, we must first look at our individual commitments towards cross country. The hope is that our team can get this turned around and quickly. For those athletes who did compete on Saturday they were greeted by sunny skies and warm temperatures. The competition in the Big 8 showed it will be stiff again this season. It is now time for our team to start to chip away at this competition with hard work and dedication.

Our varsity team was led by Joel F who earned an individual medal with his 36th place finish. The varsity scorers included senior Ty B, junior Elliot B, sophomore Gavin H, and sophomore Peter V. This group combined for a team score of 369 points to finish in 13th place (out of 25 teams). We beat Platteville on the 6th place tiebreaker as junior Malcolm B beath their #6 runner and junior Will S rounded out the varsity finishers competing in his first ever high school cross country race. This group stepped in nicely to compete hard for our team today and we hope they earned valuable experience that will help them this season and into their running career.

The JV team scored 255 points to finish in 9th place. They were led by freshman Brett N, junior Eli T, sophomore Peter S, senior Jansen H, and sophomore Martin V. Brett, Peter, and Martin led a group of 20 runners who ran their Personal Record (PR) on this difficult Verona course. Others who improved their PR from last season included Richard T, Joey R, and Walker V. I look forward to see the progression of runners who continue to work hard at practice. It is important that everyone is getting more sleep to allow their bodies to recover, stretching to improve their flexibility, eating healthy & hydrating to take care of their bodies, and putting the time to ice, rehab, etc to keep the improvement going.

VERONA RESULTS
Boys Varsity
Boys JV

NEXT MEET
Saturday September 10th
West Invitational @ Lake Farm Park
Bus Time - 7:00am
9:00am - Boys Varsity (2015 Results)
10:00am - Boys JV (2015 Results)
11:30am - Awards (Var - top 2 teams & 25 individuals, JV - top 20 individuals)

UPCOMING EVENTS
Sept 5th (Mon) - Captains Practice @ UW-Arboretum - 8:00am
Sept 11th (Sun) - Ironman Volunteering @ Lot 60 on UW Campus 12 - 4pm OR 4 - 8pm (Optional)
Sept 12th (Mon) - Team Pictures @ JMM - 3:45pm

NEWS & NOTES
Order team clothing - HERE
Bucket Hats - limited # of bucket hats will go on sale at practice starting Tues 9/6...cost is $25 (under armour black bucket hat with JMM CC embroidery)