The forecast was awful, but the weather and our team performance were awfully good. Powered by a pack split of just 63 seconds, the varsity raced to a runner up finish in a field of numerous ranked teams. Daniel Occhipinti led the way with a stellar career best time of 15:22, to finish third overall. This is tied for the third fastest time on the Detweiller course by any Knight in our team history. Forty seconds later, Wielgos was crossing the line in the Top 20 again. Wielgos set a career PR by :10, finishing 19th overall.
In his first three mile effort (non 5K), junior Austin Adams has proven his value as a wild card that continues to make a difference with our lineup. Adams crossed the finish at 16:19, for 36th overall. Six seconds later, we had a final 1-2 punch to our scoring when Walker completed a career PR effort at 16:25 (dropping :48 off his best). Aidan Lodwig capped our amazing team finish with a FTTF best time of 16:26. Pushers Nosek and Neal also did some big damage by besting nearly every other teams’ third to fifth runners in the event. Nosek notched a :42 career PR for 3 miles, crossing in 64th place at 16:41, and Neal ran a career best as well to round out our team’s day in 72nd place (16:44).
The lineup was able to include three more racers, and our bonus runners established new career best results. Dallal improved his career best, running 17:17 to finish 138th out of 477 runners. Aaron Lodwig was next across for the Knights, bettering his career best by :46 at 17:30 (171). Sophomore Brady Popovich completed our day with the varsity race, running a new :18 PR of 17:33 (182).
The Open was enormous, including teams from all three classes. Our Knights fared very well on the muddy course, with numerous career bests. Senior Jacob Petrik equaled his best from 2017 with a 17:20, good for 72nd overall. Finn was next to cross at 17:38, with freshman Nolan Allen chasing to establish his best at 17:51. Charles Fitts improved his career best by :21, running 18:03, and Christian Phillips was on his heels at 18:04 to complete our team scoring. The Open runners combined for 18th against 69 scoring teams.
Christopher Fountain established the biggest “drop” of the week, slashing 1:04 off his career best from 2017, when he ended his run at 18:24. Klingensmith bettered his FTTF PR by :55, to complete his day at 18:37. Fellow senior, Kyle Orczykowski, was next in line when he ran a season’s best mile pace to finish in 18:40. Parker Malone dropped his career best by :35 to nab a new PR of 18:58.
Freshman Evan Scherden ran his first three-mile in 20:25, sprinting through the three blue mats at the finish. Will Huber competed in Peoria for the first time as well, and recorded a 20:32, finishing 621st. Jack Webster, also brand new to the sport had his first race ever, and broke the 7:00 mile pace barrier to complete the course in 20:38. Sussland also beat the mile pace barrier, finishing 20:58, and tying his career best in the process. Freshman Dominic Fiedler established a new standard of excellence by racing to 21:15, a time he will be working to break many times this fall.
David Brazee ran a career best 21:58, which erased his previous three-mile best by 52 seconds. Newcomer Jazper Rovinsky got his first taste of cross country racing and did a super job competing all the way to the finish line, crossing in 22:46. Freshman Casey Walters not only showed his best, but bettered his 2.35 scrimmage time while running more than a half mile longer course! Casey finished the day at 28:09, and looked so strong in the process.
This day was remarkable for many reasons, but most importantly the entire group came ready to run. We have so much work to do, and be assured that the competition that we faced and beat today will both look different in the future as well as find motivation from the results. Some teams may have had runners missing for ACT weekend, and others were competing for the very first time of the year. None of this diminishes our achievement as a team. The second place trophy is the best one we have ever earned at this loaded meet. With 5 of the Top 10 ranked schools in the meet, we got a taste of what is coming up.
No comments:
Post a Comment