Jackson Invitational

We had two races at the Jackson Invitational this week. The open race was Friday night with the temperatures hovering around the upper 70's. The varsity ran Saturday morning on the same course with temperatures in the mid 50's. In both cases, the lack of rain in recent weeks has dried out this course and made it FAST. The low temperatures on Saturday morning helped as well.

Open Race:

In the open race, the team worked hard and were CHAMPIONS! There were some good teams that attended like TTUN, Lakeland and Novi. Saline scored 34 points to take the championship. Lakeland was 2nd with 69 points followed by Novi (82) and TTUN (101).

Kate Munson was the individual champion in the open race. Her time of 20:30 was 1:27 ahead of 2nd place. She ran this race from the front, on her own from about 400 meters. We're excited for Kate as she makes her return to racing.

Michelle Jiang was the 2nd Hornet to cross the line in a PR of 22:28 and 4th place overall. She was followed by Mia Washington in 22:55 (7th place)

Captains Riley Provost (23:08, 10th) and Claire Oberski (23:09, 12th) worked together to round out the scoring 5. They were followed by Isabelle Calati in 24:33.

Captain Ruthie Bonfiglio was the 7th Hornet finisher in 24:41

Catherine Kniffin ran a 24:42 PR to finish in 39th place. She was followed by Isabella Routson (26:01) and Hayley Hummel (27:02)

Seraphina Newton and Moira Laundree both finished in 29:16. They were followed by Grace Patton (31:17) and Teagan Dzagulones (31:20)

Janaye Sifuna (31:48) and Kat Szura (31:54) ran much of the race together. You can see how hard they have been working to this point in the race (about 4k into the race).

Elizabeth Giles rounded out the Hornets to cross the line. Elizabeth has been doing a great job on the course as well as mentoring many of the younger runners in the Saline cross country family by helping out with the Heritage cross country program a few days each week.

Varsity Race:

We came into this race talking about earning respect. In this highly competitive field, we wanted to prove to ourselves and others that we belong in the upper echelon of teams in this very competitive D1 field. The team responded. We finished 5th overall, 4th team from Michigan (there was a very competitive team from Fort Wayne, IN that attended the meet and finished 2nd). Furthermore, 8 out of 10 athletes in the varsity race ran a PR. That's incredible.

The PR's started with Savannah Staton. She ran 18:21 and finished in 16th place. She was followed by Captain Lilli Schlack in a PR of 18:39 surpassing her previous PR from her sophomore year at Jambo 2. Addie Turck turned in a solid time of 19:00 - a 32 second PR. Not to be left out, the freshman duo of Caroline Cotner (20:03) and Lauren Tomaszewski (20:29) both ran solid PR's. Our next finishers were Mimi Staton (20:54) and Sophie Roth (21:16). Freshman Ruby Giddings shaved about 27 seconds off her previous best to finish in 21:41.

Ruby was followed closely by Captain Hannah Gritzmaker in a PR of 21:42. We need to highlight an incredible week for Hannah. Last Saturday, Hannah ran a PR of 22:15 which was a 21 second improvement over her Jambo 2 PR as a sophomore. Her 21:42 at Jackson was her first trip under 22:00 and a 56 second improvement from that sophomore PR that she bettered last week. That's incredible progress and speaks to the hard work that Hannah puts in. She attends all of our practices and participates in our optional lifting program, all while balancing her schoolwork.

Payton Aagesen was a late add to the varsity lineup due to illness. We talked about taking advantage of the opportunity and she did just that. She ran a PR of 21:53 a 35 second PR from just a few weeks ago. Payton did not find out until late Thursday that she was running in the varsity race but she did not let that have an impact.

The coaches are really proud of the results we saw from the athletes who participated at Jackson. They navigated a lot of things, not the least of which is homecoming demands from various groups. These athletes brought their best and achieved some outstanding results.

Jambo 2 is on Thursday in Bedford. Varsity races at 4:30 and the Open race is at 5:35pm. We hope to see you there!

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