2010 meet reviews

Coach Ausema’s meet reviews | results | main Gonzaga XC page

Pics from team retreat in Bryce

Great Meadows | Full results, photos, and article | Gonzaga results with splits | photos

A great start to the season! We soundly defeated 3 teams ranked in the top-10 for Virginia's pre-season poll. Collin had an outstanding race, making a bold move to break away mid-way through the race. He looked very strong. Mike also took a risk by going out hard, struggled a bit during the second half, but held on for a major PR. Connor had a solid race, and Kevin also looked strong after not racing at this distance for 9 months. Nathan looked very strong, consistently picking off other runners and moving up throughout the race. Fran started strong but faded ... hopefully just an off day. Pat never really seemed to get into the race and hopefully will be more ready next time.

The rest of the team had solid beginnings to the season. I think many of you were disappointed by running quite a bit slower than PR level. There are several good explanations: many of you have not raced at this level on intensity and/or distance since last November; it was also hot for the later races. The freshman looked pretty good to start things out - we had a frosh-dominated squad in the JV fr-so race, and other teams with stronger sophomores had an advantage because of more experience. So a 7th place finish was very good. In the Varsity B, Martin and Matt did a nice job leading the way. The top two teams did not race in the Varsity A, so we were the number 5 Varsity B team.

Most Outstanding Performances

• Collin had a great race to start the season - it's hard to win a major race! Great job taking the risk
• Mike and Nathan - both with major PR's to start the season.

Magruder Full results | Meet recap | Gonzaga results with splits | photos | more photos

Overall, and awesome team performance today! The freshmen started off with some strong initial performances, led by Chris’ 3^rd place finish. We had a nice pack with the next three guys coming in together. Now that we have a good baseline of 1-2 races for the freshmen, your times will start coming down significantly! We finished in 2^nd place, just 3 points away from first.

The varsity team responded well to the last-minute pullout of Connor, whose foot was bothering him. Collin ran another great race, pulling away fairly early and cruising to a great early-season time – faster than Puffett ran last year at this meet. Mike also ran an awesome race, dueling with the chase pack until near the end – when a slip at the water crossing cost him a few spots and a few seconds. Kevin had the most outstanding performance of the day, with a major PR and very important 12 points. Nathan continued to look very strong as well, and moved up nicely throughout the race, while Fran still looked a little rough but has improved quite a bit from our first race. Pat also looks to be in good early-season form, and Martin and Matt had solid races as well. Andrew’s off-season training also has put him in a strong position at the start of the year (a PR, I think!?)

In the Varsity B, Josh had a great debut race to finish 3^rd overall. Nick looked much better than last week and appears to be approaching last year’s end-of-season form. Henry was next with a solid performance, and Brendan looked good in his season debut. JP looked much better than at Great Meadows – looks like summer training is paying off! Sean made it under the letter standard by the slightest of margins, while Tom made it through a race without getting sick for the first time in quite while. Hopefully it’s the start of a new streak. Our team performance was quite good; realize that Good Counsel ran on 7 guys in the varsity, while we had 9 (or 10 if you count Connor). In addition, GC’s top 2 Varsity B guys beat their #6 & 7. If this had been a “normal” varsity/JV division (with 7 varsity runners for every team), my quick calculation is that we would win with 30 points. Still, the JV race at WCAC is shaping up to be more competitive than in recent years!

Most Outstanding Performances

• Varsity: Many outstanding performances, but the most impressive was Kevin Pitts. "runner-up" for Collin and Mike
• Freshman: Chris Hoyle
• JV/Varsity B: Josh Bak-Brevik

Robert Rizzo Relays Results: Boys Boys JV Individual Splits Gonzaga splits with 5K conversions | Photos | more photos | more photos | news story

Some great performances at an unusual venue! It was fun to race in a alternate format. Best moment of the day, for me, was seeing the reaction of the Jefferson fans when their anchor got the baton ("he will be able to catch that guy"), and then seeing Collin round the corner a few minutes later with a solid lead. Turns out Collin had the best split of the day, beating out a 4:14 miler! Mike raced hard on the first leg to get us in position, and Kevin and Connor did a great job of gaining and then extending the lead.

In the "slow heat", Gonzaga dominated with the top two teams. Our "D" team grabbed the lead on the first leg, with a strong opening by Henry, and raced alone in front the rest of the way. Sean Wallisch had an awesome final leg to bring the "E" team in with a close second.

Most Outstanding Performances

• Collin's holding off a strong runner was an outstanding demonstration of mental toughness
• Sean Wallish with a fast closing leg and passing several teams
• Henry with a great opening leg

Mercersburg Invitational Results | Gonzaga results with splits | Photos

A solid team performance today, and a good steppingstone for the season. The varsity squad scored a dominant win, with 4 finishers in the top 10. Collin staged an epic battle with McGowen from Sidwell . . he came out on the short side this time, but there will be more opportunities. Mike stayed with the lead pack for the first mile, then fell back but still looked strong. The rest of the pack followed the plan of attack and went out quick for the first half of the race. We closed with varying degrees of speed . . . Kevin pulling away in the second half, while Connor fell back and Nathan and Fran moved up. Pat looked strong throughout as well.

The times are a bit puzzling. They appear slow across the board, especially given that this has historically been a fast course. The unusual heat, and a strong wind on the upper part of the course, were probably factors. It’s quite possible that the course is also a little long.

In the JV, Nick L had a strong start and took an early lead. Unfortunately, he convinced himself that he had no business being in the front, and surrendered the lead to a pack of St. Albans runners. There will be other opportunities against that squad, at Prep Classic and the state championship. Josh was in good position, and moved up nicely, grabbing the lead in the last few hundred meters. He looked very strong at the end. Henry also had a nice race . . . we competed quite well, given that Matt and Martin were sitting out with injuries. Chris H had another strong performance. Sean, Andrew and Brendan looked pretty good in rounding out the top 7. Drew appeared to have recovered from using the new shoes in the workout earlier in the week. Several runners further back in the pack improved, in spite of the heat/wind. Kieran Hutson made a big improvement, as did Isaiah Battle, Jack Ross, Brian Abod, and Joey Sweet. JP and Ryan battled it out, with JP coming in ahead this time.

Most Outstanding Performances: as noted above, all three of these runners made major improvements

• Isaiah Battle
• Kieran Hutson
• Jack Ross

Octoberfest Results | Gonzaga results with splits | News coverage: Washington Post | Milestat | Becca's Run | Photos

Great team performances today! Everyone seems to be moving in the right direction. The varsity team set the tone with a convincing victory, scoring 125 points to 2^nd place Stafford’s 153. Collin followed a fast pace through 2 miles, then fell off a bit but still held on for a slightly faster time than at Great Meadows. Mike ran very strongly in the chase pack, and for the first time looked strong all the way to the end, just missing the 16 minute barrier. It will come soon . . Kevin continues to look great as well, and managed to get ahead of the large pack of good runners in the late 16s. I am fairly certain we have never had a #3 runner this fast! Fran and Connor both competed well, and seemed to take a step forward in their racing progression for the season. Nathan struggled a bit in the last mile, and Pat looked solid but never seemed to totally get on track.

In the underclassman JV race, Chris was outstanding. He started in the low 20s (place wise) and consistently moved up, finishing in 14^th overall and as the 3^rd freshman. Tom looked good, just missing the 20:00 barrier, and was followed by a very impressive pack of 5 freshman in 10 seconds. An awesome job of pack running! In the JV upperclassman race we also had a nice tight pack, with a 23-second spread for the first 6 guys. I saw a purple streak go past the last turn, and realized it was Thomas, who had an outstanding kick. It looks like we were the best “3^rd team” squad in the race – in other words, the teams that came ahead of us did not enter both the Varsity races.

In the Varsity B race, our strong 6^th place finish was behind only one other squad that was not a top-7 – that of Riverbend, which finished 28 points ahead of us. With Martin in the race and Matt at full strength, that contest would have been quite a bit closer. Nick and Henry both had their best races of the year so far and looked quite strong. Josh may have gone out a bit too fast; I was afraid he was going to totally fall apart, but he recovered for a strong finish. Brendan also looks like he is getting into good racing shape. Sean looked good for 2 miles, but then fell apart, while Matt looked a bit timid in his racing style.

At Becca’s Run, it looks like we had a good showing. Brian Abod was the top finisher. (More to come when I get a full report from Coach L)

Most Outstanding Performances

• Varsity: Mike Crozier and Fran Lewis. Honorable mention to Kevin and Connor
• Varsity B: Nick L
• JV jr/sr: Thomas Fergus. Honorable mention to Henry and BK, who had PRs
• JV fr/so: Chris Hoyle, with an honorable mention nod to the freshman pack
• Becca’s Run: Brian Abod and Joey Connor

Glory Days/Bull Run Invitational Results | Gonzaga results | Photos

Since I was not there, I will include a few comments from other coaches:

• Coach L says "Props to Alex Seton for battling to the very end against some bigger guy"
• Coach S notes "traffic that caused us to all arrive late. The freshmen had about 30 minutes to get organized, see some of the course, warm up, and get to the start. Combined with the heat it wasn't ideal. Most of the frosh said they either ran "just OK" to "not very good"

Most Outstanding Performances

Prep Classic and Stampede Prep Classic Results | Prep results with splits | Stampede Results and splits | Prep Photos

This race was a bit of a “gut check” for us. How are we faring as we head into the championship phase of the season? Where do we need to tune up? We fared relatively well, but there are still some big gaps.

Let’s start with Prep Classic. In the varsity race, we competed fairly well but fell short of our overall goals. Assuming Collin was in the lineup and finished in the top 5, we would probably have narrowly beaten out West Potomac for 3^rd. Recall the importance of placing at the “heart” of the race: if both Connor and Fran were to run 10 seconds faster, we would have won the race with Collin. If they could each run 20 seconds faster, we will by a convincing 25 point margin.

The freshman had a solid race, but we are still waiting for the big breakthrough for the pack. Chris had a strong performance to finish in the medals. The pack of #2-5 had a 16 second spread, which was excellent. Now for the challenge – can you run 30 seconds faster as a group? We have now seen that two WCAC teams have strong freshman teams, so we are shaping up for a competitive conference championship.

The JV team had a solid performance, particularly in light of how rough a day it was for various individuals. Ryan got crushed into the bridge and hobbled through the rest of the race. JP was struggling with a cold. Martin ran a courageous race but was not quite ready for fast running after 2+ weeks of injury. Andrew had a strong race, but does not appear in the results because he was not wearing his chip. And Josh did not appear at all. Taking all this into account, a 9^th place finish is not bad. We certainly would have hoped for top 3 if everyone was running in good condition. On the plus side, Matt G had a solid race after coming off several injuries, and Brendan ran very well. With the time adjustment (see below), Fergus probably gets a season PR, while Sean bounced back from a rough finish at Octoberfest.

Regarding the course – my rough estimate is that you can subtract 45-50 seconds to get an equivalent time on the Great Meadows course.

At Stampede – I will try to get one of the other coaches to fill in some details. We had lots of PR’s, which is a good sign that people are getting into better shape. In the freshman race, we came in near last, but that’s largely because we had few front-runners. The pack had some nice times, especially leaders Riley and Kieran. In the JV race, Charlie had a solid return from a long-term illness, while Thomas had a major PR in the next position. McQuillan, Seton, and Patrick Hisle all appeared to have turned in strong performances.

Most Outstanding Performances

• Prep Classic – Varsity: Crozier; “runner-up” for Pitts and Lindsay
• Prep Classic – JV: B. Kelley
• Prep Classic – freshman – Ronan (leader of the pack)
• Stampede – freshman: O’Halloran
• Stampede – JV: Pullano

The freshman had a great performance, knocking off one team (PVI) that had solidly beaten us at Glory Days and coming very close to Bishop Ireton, which also easily out-ran us at Prep. Great team running. Chris made a solid run at the leader, staying close the entire way, but did not have enough to get him in the end. (parenthetically, I will note that often the top freshman in the race is not the best runner in his class 2 or 3 years later. Several past freshman champions from Gonzaga were not even running XC as seniors. Mike C was the 4th-best freshman but is now the top junior). McKay make a great move during the race to challenge the scoring packs from our rivals. The next pack ran very well together, with Jack and Will having a great to-the-line finish. Kieran had an outstanding race as well.

The Varsity B team responded to a strong challenge from Good Counsel with a great race. With a number of potential scorers dealing with assorted injuries, it was hard to predict how we would run. Nick had a great race from the front, and unfortunately lost his shoe . . while the top GC runner took advantage of his setting the pace. Matt had his best race since early season to take 4th (recall that we generally view this course as 40 seconds slow, although that number can vary quite a bit based on conditions. Today 40 seconds would be a good estimate; some years it’s at least a minute). Martin and Brendan came through with clutch performances with some key points – and were in the thick of the battle. Nice finishing kick by Martin. Our next pack looked strong as well; Henry had a solid first race back after several weeks off, although he got into a bit of a battle in the final straightaway. Among other JV finishers, Sean K appeared to have his strongest race of the season. Justin had a nice first race back as well. Matt Skibinski looked very strong at the end (a PR?).

The varsity ran a great race to grab our third championship in a row. Collin and Mike cooled their heals with Reily early, then made a first strong push before the woods. Kevin caught up in the woods and made a strong move up on the flats, and we were in 1-2-3 by the campground. Fran looked ready to make a run at 6^th place with 1000 to go, but could not hold on and still finished in a respectable 8^th. Connor looked solid throughout but finished a little more weakly – at least grabbing the last all-conference spot and sealing the win. Nathan looked aggressive and appeared un-affected by his foot injury, while Pat had one of his best races of the season.

Most Outstanding Performances:

• Varsity: Kevin Pitts. Runner-up to Collin and Mike
• Varsity B: Nick L, Brendan K, Matt Skibinski, Matt Gatti
• Freshman: McKay Allen

State Championships Results | Gonzaga results with splits | Washington Post coverage | Photos

An outstanding day with lots of PR’s, capped by a well-earned state championship trophy. The varsity team was dominant, with an impressive 46 points – that’s a low score for a meet of this size and competitive level. Collin and Mike ran a strong race, comfortably in 3-4 for most of the way after losing a few guys who tried to hang on in the first mile. Collin did not have enough to go after the two leaders, following almost 6 weeks of nursing tendonitis. Kevin had a solid race mixing it up with the first large chase pack, and came in towards the middle of that group – and towards the high end of Coach K’s projected range. Connor had an outstanding race, finally finding his rhythm and running with Kevin in the first pack. It was the race I knew you were capable of!! Nathan and Nick were also outstanding, both with big PR’s and performing above Coach K’s projections.

In the JV race, Pat had a strong effort to finish in 4^th overall. Matt G also ran a nice race, and Chris had a major (~40 second) PR to finish as our second scorer. We had a nice pack in the upper 18’s, led by JP. CJ looked good in his first race. Further back were some more outstanding performances and many PR’s – too many to highlight here. Ryan made it under the 19:00 barrier, while Zander was close. Three more freshmen were well under the 20:00 barrier – Christian, Jimmy, and Brian. Joey rounded out the finishers with a solid PR as well. The Good Counsel team had a very strong race, and it might have been tough to beat them even with all of our top JV guys in the race and running injury free. We also benefited from the fact that Loyola had an incomplete team, dropping out the three guys that they placed in the top 10. All-in-all, a strong team performance given what we had to work with.

Most Outstanding Performances

• Varsity: Connor Ryan and Nick Lindsay
• JV: Zander Seton, Chris Hoyle, Ryan McGlynn, Joey Sweet

• Varsity: Kevin Pitts and Fran Lewis
• JV: Josh BB
• Freshman: Brian Abod, who led the pack

Nike SE Regional Championships Results | team results in readable format | Milestat coverage | Dyestat coverage | Photos: Nike | MoCo | Professional photos

A nice finish to the season! This was a highly-competitive and close meet, and we were in the chase for a qualifying spot. Nobody had a breakout performance, but everyone ran well and we had a number of PRs down through the lineup. Collin and Mike ran solid races, chasing the leaders through the race mid-point. They lost a few spots in the past mile, but Collin ended up all-region and Mike just missed. Kevin had another great race and looked strong all the way through the end. Connor and Fran both established strong positions early; both lost a few spots but did not fade dramatically – Connor had a PR and Fran was close. Keep in mind that last year our 3-5 pack, the heart of our scorers, were close to Fran’s time from this year. Nathan looked strong most of the way, although he faded at the end, and Nick looked solid and got good exposure to a high-intensity race.

In the open race, we competed well and had a number of strong races. None of you were up front, as the race depth was significantly stronger than in previous years. Pat had a solid performance, consistent with his better races this year. Matt G had a PR, and Henry had a strong PR. JP looked good coming off illness, while Xander and Matt M both made the most of their last-minute opportunities with PRs.

I have posted some team scores in a format that is more readable than what you will find elsewhere online, with most of the team names changed to reflect their school. (I will try to figure the rest of them out). It is interesting to look at how we compared against other teams on a runner-by-runner basis. You will note that only one team had a #3 significantly better than ours (two other teams had a #3 right in front of Kevin). We also did quite well at #2, with Mike bested by only 5 teams #2 runners. It’s usually the case that the best team has the top #5 runner; in this case the #5 from Chapel Hill, the best pack team (a remarkable 17-second spread!), beat Midlothian’s by one spot.

MOPs

• Championship race: Kevin Pitts; runner-up to everyone else!
• Open race: Henry and Xander