Jambo 2 / Marauder

It was a great week for Saline XC!!  We started our week with the first ever SEC Jamboree at Saline High School on Wednesday and rounded out the week with the Marauder Invitational on Saturday.

The atmosphere around Jambo 2 was electric.  Including Saline, 8 teams participated in the races bringing ~450 athletes and countless spectators to the brand new course at Saline High School.  The weather was perfect - mid 60's, overcast with some light rain - great racing weather.  The results were outstanding with several PR's on our team (more on those in a second) and one of our competitors, Rachel Forsythe from TTUN (see previous Race Notes for the explanation) ran the fastest time by a high schooler in the country this year (16:18).

Let's talk for a second about the elephant in the room - the course.  As soon as the results were posted, X (Twitter) and other running groups lit up with some disbelief about the validity of the course.  The course was measured several times - once by Coach Lagerquist and I with a wheel, a few times by Coach Spina, at least once by Coaches Ornelas and Ditri with GPS watches and then our athletes themselves in the race with their GPS watches.  The most important to me is the race distance.  Our athletes consistently measured the course at 4.98k-5k (or 3.08-3.1 miles).  In my opinion, and many others', the course is accurate!!

Now, back to the racing results - the important stuff!!

Varsity Race: 

This is the last race in which we are allowed to enter 10 athletes in varsity.  From this point forward, we will enter 7 athletes in varsity competitions.  The 10 athletes we took to the line were ready to run fantastic races.  These ladies ran so well that 8 of the 10 ran either season bests or personal bests.  

Sophie Roth continues to have a fantastic year.  After breaking 20 for the first time at Jackson, she doubled down on Wednesday and ran a 19:10, making her the 11th fastest freshman of all time.  She has improved 56 seconds in the last week. 

Mackenzie Sellenraad was the 5th runner with a PR of 19:25.  She was followed by Abby Roth in a season best 19:33.  Nancy Gage continued her steady and fast string of performances with her 2nd PR in a week running 19:43.  Grace Oberski (20:06), Grace Roth (20:21) and Bailey Burt (season best 20:45) rounded out the top 10 runners. 

Open Race: 

In the open race, we tried something a little different.  We started in 2 waves.  The 2nd wave started exactly 1 minute after the first.  This allowed us to manage a somewhat narrow start to make sure the larger races had a fair start. 

They were followed by Riley Provost, Mia Washington, Mara McClellan and Neva Rognes - all with PR's.  Also finishing with PR's from that first wave were Hannah Gritzmaker, Kennedy Lange, Ruthie Bonfiglio, Sienna Trier and Lucy Sweeney.  Wow!  These ladies all ran great races!

Also running PR's from this wave were Emma Allis, Ally Southward, Elizabeth Giles, Shelby Fordeck, who PR'd by 90 seconds, and Sasha Lipovetsky.

That's a lot of PR's and that meant a lot of celebrating at Thursday's team meeting.  Overall, the coaches were very impressed and proud of each runner. 

Marauder Invitational

We had a "small" team attend the Marauder Invitational Saturday.  It was also homecoming and we gave most of the team the option to attend or stay at home.  About 1/2 the team attended to either race, or run a workout on the regional course. 

Varsity

We had six young ladies start the varsity race.  Senior/Captain Avery Bogdasarian had a great race running a season best 22:04 for 24th place overall.  She was followed by Ayla Stager, Rebecca Rumel, Jill Hayes, Katie Reading and Kylie Warner.  Overall, the varsity girls finished in 6th place.  

Freshman

It's always nice to be a champion.  Today was that day for Mia Washington as she won the girls side of the freshmen race.  She was followed by Emma Allis, Dahlia Dell'Orco and Elizabeth Giles.  Dahlia ran a PR!  These freshmen are putting in the work and getting the results.

Open

In the open race, Ruthie Bonfiglio was the first Hornet to cross the line,  She was 5th overall and followed by Hannah Gritzmaker who also cracked the top 10 in 7th place.  For many of these runners, it was  their third race in7 days which is quite a workload.  That did not seem to slow down Grace Youngs as she PR'd with a 25:43 - good for 36th place.  

We made a quick exit from the park so the team could get back to get ready for homecoming.  For some reason, they were not willing to put my plan into place - wash their hair in Lake Erie and "blow dry" it out the bus window on the way home.  I guess they don't trust the bald guy to give good hair advice 😀.  

The team next races at Portage 10/7.