ROSHOLT INVITATIONAL 2011
The Rosholt meet may be the smallest on our schedule, but I’m convinced there is not a better meet in Wisconsin. Where else do you get as many medals, plaques, T-shirts, and best of all home made chicken soup? All of this and a fast yet challenging course is just 20 minutes down the road. I would like to see a few more teams in the meet. Last year there were 13, this year only 8. If coaches are looking for a better meet all I can say is “good luck”. I hope our J.V.s are not the cause of the defection. Each year we enter a bunch of mid 17 to low 18 minute guys in the Varsity race. Good small school programs, like Rosholt, welcome that challenge and know that to compete at the state level they must be able to run with our J.V. guys. This is not a meet we need to win, we are only here to run fast, push the Rosholt guys, and eat soup.
The weather on Thursday was pretty good, until we boarded our busses. After that it got bad, then worse, and just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. Sixty degrees and light rain gave way to 50 and wind and then 45 with a 40 M.P.H. wind out of the north. It was just plain ugly. There is no doubt that times were affected in the “varsity” and J,V, races. The course is pretty well sheltered but in the open spots the wind could just about stop you. Overall I’m proud of how well our guys performed. It was a good lesson in toughness and a reminder of why coaches always remind athletes to bring lots of warm dry clothing.
The junior high race was one of the best I’ve ever seen with only 6 seconds separating the top 5 places. It was a great matchup with the Rosholt guys. With 3 runners in we had 10 points and they had 11. Our depth made the difference as we added 15 more points to their 25 with our 4th and 5th runners. It will be fun to watch these young runners develop over the next 4 or 5 years. Smith, Thimmesch, and Brady ran great and were nearly as fast as Hatton last year. Derek Franz was outstanding as were Menningen, Fisher, Knapp, and Meyer who broke 14 minutes for the first time. Last year we had 11 guys under 14 min. and this year we had 24. That number included 4 very talented 6th graders who joined us for the first time: Basola, Belson, Hyland, and Melxner. In my 34 years here, we have never had a more talented group of young guys, and best of all they like to run.
The wind picked up just in time for the varsity race making the first quarter mile pretty miserable. Times were not very fast, but all of our guys ran well. Hansen had a good battle with the 2nd Wittenberg runner, Cole raced well against Wallace from Rosholt. Suehring, Klein and Yonash all ran well, and along with Hansen they also provide some great seinor leadership. Our best race of the day had to be The Drake, he ran a great last mile to crack the top 10 and break 18 minutes for the first time. Our average time of 17:49 was good under the conditions. Last year we averaged 17:44, in ‘07 17:29, in ‘05, 17:24, and in ‘06 17:08 while our JV’s averaged 17:50. It may not look like it, but this is a pretty fast course under normal weather conditions.
Our J.V.s had the toughest job of the day. The sun was going down, the wind was picking up, and most sensible people had gone home. The race was like SPASH intersquad 2.0. There was little to run for except pride, 3 medals, and warm soup. Overall we did pretty well. Most guys gave a good effort and were pretty close to their Manitowoc times. Juan took charge from the start, looked smooth, and ran a P.R. all by himself. Krutza and H.H. did a great job of pushing one another, ran P.R.s, and nearly got under 19 minutes. Gibson and Jerney ran their best races of the season in the worst conditions.
This was an interesting day, a test of our toughness, and a chance to learn about racing in bad weather. All may come in handy as we head into the big meets at the end of our season.