Stevens Point Invite Comments

            It was a beautiful September day for a cross country meet, maybe a little hot, but the course was dry and the crowd was large, what more could we ask for at our home invite.  If you were asking for a lean to shelter, well, our 7^th graders were providing one of those as well.

            The LDP got us off on the right track.  Smith led the way and ran 37 seconds faster than he did last year.  The 7^th grade pack of Thimmesch, Koontz, Franz and Koontz ran like seasoned veterans and we were able to beat a very good Rosholt team.  Many other guys looked more comfortable in their second race of the season and continued to improve.  As we have said many times, keep working hard and good things will happen.

            The JV race started out with a quick first 800 meters, but our lead pack was able to stay patient early and moved up in the second half mile of the race.  Isaiah ran a very controlled first mile to take the lead by the mile.  The patience paid off as many of our guys were able to move up throughout the 2^nd half of the race and take the top six places.  LB ran a PR and claimed a varsity spot for the next meet.  Weisbrod ran well for 2^nd to run right at his PR and Hatton and Bachinski both lowered their PR’s from last week.  The race of the day belonged to Franz who finished 6^th and dropped a 1:48 from his first 5k last week in Neenah.  Also running PR’s were:  Yonash, The Drake, Hummel-Hall, Klesmith, Wallace, Palmgren, Tanko, Negaard, JFo, Wysocki, Erler, Jones, the Dotti boys, The Quiz, K. Chojnacki, Colby, and Eron.  We talked about closing the gap on our JV team and today we made good progress towards that goal.

            The varsity race was a match up between two very good teams, us and DCE and from the beginning you could see that both teams came focused on the task at hand.  Larson got out well, and the 2-4 pack moved up into good position from the 800-1200.  Our 5-8 runners got pinned in a little along the fence.  However, they remained calm and improved their position to the mile.  The second mile of the race our guys went to work.  Larson pulled away about half way through the race and looked smooth winning in a time of 16:04.  Anderson, Sheibley and Hodsdon all ran PRs and placed in the top 10 for the second week in a row.  Hodsdon officially joined the sub-17 club.  Cruz ran a great 2^nd mile after being pinned in early and just missed going sub-17.  Again, one of our goals was to close the gap between our 5-6 runners.  Last week the gap was 56 secs., today Cole ran a 10 sec. PR and closed the gap to 23 secs.  Luetschwager was also inside of the 56 sec gap from last week, running a PR of 17:43 in his first varsity race.  In the end, we were able to beat DCE by 19 points.

            Overall it was a great day, we were able to run a lot of fast times on a 5k course.  We still have plenty of work to do, but we have shown that we are not afraid of hard work and we are starting to reap the benefits of the hard work we have already put in this season.  For those of you who have lowered your PR’s, congratulations and set your sights higher.  You inspire your teammates, your parents and the little kids that ran the mile race today.  It was great to see you out there cheering them on, running with them and enjoying being part of the Stevens Point Cross Country team.

Spash Invitational Facts:
- This is our 7th consecutive SPASH Invitational victory and our 16th in the 19 year history of the meet.
- Our 16:37 average is the second fastest in meet history, only our ‘08 team (16:31) ran faster.
- Larson's 16:04 in the third fastest ever on this course. Solinsky ran 15:55 in 2001 and 15:11 in 02.