Hello everyone! I hope all of you are having a much less stressed weekend than I am!
I will be updating the DMR post at some point. I knew I was forgetting a bunch of teams, but I wanted to get something up on the blog to start that discussion and wasn't able to dedicate more time to it.
This post won't be very long, and I'm sorry about not being able to get a video up last night. I was in the library till it closed at 10 and then did more work until 1 AM and the video just wasn't going to happen. :( So for that I apologize.
Boys Race Quick Thoughts:
First off I'm really happy for Taylor Wilmot getting the victory. He's an extraordinary talent who was sub 9:00 for 3200 as just a sophomore but has struggled with major injuries, so it's great to see him get a national title. Gig Harbor showed up in a big way, but hey, they have a 1:45 800 coach who is signed with Brooks. They probably have the best coaching in the nation. I thought CBA ran a very good race overall but sophomore Blaise Ferro (#2 guy all year) was their #4 which made the biggest difference. Brentwood almost lost last weekend after SV shocked at regionals, but they came up big today with 4 guys in the top 55.
As for PA people: Tony Russell ran really gutsy which I'm surprised with. I was thinking he would sit back in the top 15 to 20 and roll on people the last 1k or so, but he was in the top 3 2.5k in and kept pushing the pace. He faded in the last 1k but placed 11th overall which is fantastic. It was a strong individual year for NXN (although not as strong as FL in my opinion). But 15:16 in freezing whether is legit. Behind him the team didn't have its best of days, but they finished a solid 12th overall. Knapp was 16:06 for 86th and I think his best possibly showing could have put him around 70th, so that's a great spot to have him. Stratman and Moy had nice step up races to finish 117th and 131st overall, which Barchet was their 4th man placing 127th. It was a rough day for the team as a whole, but I thought they had some solid individual races. Its tough with all of those bodies at nationals after racing up front in almost all of their meets this season. They were shooting for top 5 as a team, but honestly looking at the results, breaking 250 points today (9th) would have been the best I could have seen them at.
Kevin James had a solid day to finish 55th and Molino wasn't too bad in 76th. Both guys are juniors and I'm honestly just very glad they got the experience to run on the national stage. I'm sure both were shooting for top 40 or 50, but those aren't bad days for either of them.
PA Girls:
I really liked what I saw from the girls out there today. Courtney Smith ran a gutsy race like Russell and like him it paid off well as she placed 10th overall. Behind her I liked Young in 42nd and Breeding in 60th. Mills had a solid race for 114th and Zerbe was their 5th girl in 147th. Fisher was 150th overall and is clearly still recovering from Mono. I'm proud of her for continuing racing and if you put her around 35th overall (which seems very reasonable based on her early season finishes in front of Young) they score ~125 points which is right in the mix with F-M and Wayzata XC club. (which I'll get to). 7th overall for them I think is really great and I wouldn't have asked for any tougher racing from those girls.
Lower Bucks had a very nice day as well placing 11th overall after being ranked ~15th- 20th for most of the season. I think they had a really nice race overall with Hannah Molloy looking strong leading this fairly young group. I'm excited for the teams future.
As for general comments on the girls race, Alexa Efraimson unleashes a MONSTER kick as she was 10 to 15m back 15:30 into the race. Baxter could not handle her speed at all and Cranny overtook her as well for second. Efraimson is an unreal talent and would have beaten 32 boys today... just saying.
As for Wayzata's win, that was unreal. All 7 girls were in the top 80 as the knock off 7 time defending champions Manlius XC Club. F-M has had an amazing dynasty and still finished second, but a slod amount over 3rd place, but still, they finally get taken down.
That's all for Now Folks! Statistics is calling me
--ForrestCRN
Anyone else watch the live webcast? That old announcer was terrible. About a mile into the race, with Russell steady in the front pack he actually asked who was the “shorter black guy.” It’s bad enough in this day and age to make what was at best a politically incorrect statement but how does that announcer not do a bare minimum of homework and find out who the NE Regional champion is and what he looks like?
ReplyDeleteI thought Russell was the tall white German kid on Henderson.
DeleteThe announcer must have been looking for someone of Italian/English decent.
DeleteHe also started blabbering something about the girls winners body being mature which was really, really weird.
As a person of color, I take no offense to being referred to as black-'cause that's what I am. I don't think most people find that politically incorrect. But the far more egregious error was the announcer having no clue who the Northeast champion of the last 2 years even was. Dude, it's your job to know this stuff. smh.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. We all know what color we are. But I've never heard a sports announcer refer to an athlete that way, I just think that guy wasn't a very good commentator.
DeleteThe announcers were Chris Derrick and Andrew Wheating. I wasn't aware of this until ton when the feed was being discussed at dinner (with the XC team of course). First off, I hope all of you know who they are... not announcers. Wheating clearly didn't do his homework from what I've been told and he's not the brightest guy to boot. But Chris Derrick, from what I've heard (again), did a nice job. They're professional athletes. I agree that track/xc should get legit announcers and I would have loved to see Flotrack guys doing it, but it's not a perfect world.
Delete--ForrestCRN
NXN was super fast this year. Congrats to all the PA athletes out there. Great coverage on both guys and girls side. Much appreciated!
ReplyDeleteWell my optimistic hopes for a PA victory didn’t pan out but that was still a great showing for our state. If I were flying back from that meet I’d be looking out the window for the 6 hours or so pondering the fact that this is a very large country, and there’s something like 25,000+ high schools, and we just placed 7th, 11th and 12th. That is impressive! And when I say “we” that’s how pretty much everyone feels about it; Unionville, Pennsbury and Henderson represented us all! Outstanding job!
ReplyDelete- RJJL
Spoken like the real Coach Kelly from WCH!
DeleteNice perspective coach, well said.
DeleteI heard Henderson had to drive home from Chicago.
DeleteWhy didn't they just run?
DeleteThey can beat any Chicago team.
Deletenot daaaaa Bears.
Delete