2018 Seahawk Invitational
While the temperature never exceeded 82 degrees during the meet, the humidity made it feel very hot. Still, it's hard to complain about the conditions considering we were able to get all three of our races in a year after the JV race being cancelled due to, as I put it, too perfect of cross country conditions (the trail in the woods was under at least four inches of water, and that was in the drier areas of the path).
I'm a stat nerd, so I was compelled to look back over some results from the last two seasons. Interestingly, it wasn't any of the results that stood out to me most. Two years ago, my first year as head coach, we opened our season at the Brunswick invitational. We had 15 athletes on the roster and 10 athletes ran at that meet. Last year we opened our season at the same place we ran today. Only the varsity 7 ran but all of the other 13 athletes at the meet were on the starting line when they cancelled the meet due to conditions. Today, we had 30 athletes run in the first meet of the season. Every season we have had a few rostered athletes miss the opening meet, but for us to grow so much, so quickly, and so consistently is a great sign of the health of the program.
Today's course was measured at 3 miles, which is about 160 meters short of a 5k. So to get an equivalent 5k time, you will have to add 25 seconds or more (depending on how fast you were running in the middle of your race) to today's time.
In blue, I have noted all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 3 mile at today's meet. For every athlete who made their high school cross country debut today, their time becomes their PR, and a blue asterisk (*) denotes that this was the first time they have run this distance in cross country.
Varsity A
Here are the results for our Varsity A athletes (229 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Varsity A race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and third mile splits:
109 Dawson Grogan (Fr.) - 18:32.3 [(1) 5:34, (2) 6:23, (3) 6:35]*
147 Thomas Parsons (Jr.) - 19:03.2 [(1) 5:55, (2) 6:20, (3) 6:48] PR by 11 seconds
153 Gavin Foran (So.) - 19:17.3 [(1) 5:58, (2) 6:46, (3) 6:33] PR by 1 minute 6 seconds
167 James Hudson (So.) - 19:35.0 [(1) 5:59, (2) 6:48, (3) 6:48] PR by 50 seconds
199 Langston Stovall (Fr.) - 20:46.9 [(1) 6:32, (2) 7:05, (3) 7:09]*
207 Steven Camarano (So.) - 21:29.2 [(1) 6:19, (2) 7:35, (3) 7:35] PR by 49 seconds
213 Ashby Ervin (Sr.) - 21:57.7 [(1) 6:11, (2) 7:53, (3) 7:53]
Obviously Dawson's high school debut was a highlight for the team today. With very little 5k experience, he said he tried to run it like a 2 mile race. He told me after the race that he started to feel fatigued about 200 meters after the second mile mark, but he still managed to avoid losing much time on his final mile compared to the middle of the race. Coming through the first mile between 5:45 and 5:50 should make a huge difference. In any case, Dawson's time is the 5th fastest freshman 3 mile time at DeMatha since at least 2000 (unfortunately, I don't have complete records from before then).
Thomas only beat his course best by 11 seconds, but his 2-mile split was more than 30 seconds faster today than it was last year. Some fatigue may have set in late, but there is no doubt in my mind that will right itself over the course of the season. This race sets up Thomas very well to, at minimum, break 18 in the 5k at WCACs. Thomas also broke into the top 50 3-mile cross country times since 200 at DeMatha.
James, Steven, and Ashby all ran exactly the same third mile splits as their respective second mile splits. All three got out a bit fast and obviously fatigued quite a bit in the middle of the race, but they at least were able to lock in and maintain their rhythms in that second lap of the course. James and Steven both took about 50 seconds off their time at this meet last season.
Gavin also fell off his rhythm in the second mile, but may have gotten a spark when James caught and passed him momentarily early in the last mile because he managed a negative split to close out his race. Last year Gavin ran 20:24 at this meet, so he broke his course best by more than a minute.
Langston has been having some knee issues this week but ran through the pain today. He told me after the race he felt like he could have run quite a bit faster if it hadn't been for the pain in his knees, going so far as to say the pace wasn't stressing his cardio system very much. That's a great sign that Langston is capable of easily breaking 20 once we get him healthy.
Team Results
1. Severna Park 40 points
2. Centennial 159 points
3. Howard 174 points
...
22. Our Lady of Good Counsel 553 points
...
27. DeMatha 748 points
This year we had a much more competitive meet than we did last year. The course conditions notwithstanding, Dawson's finish in the field was comparable to Thomas's finish last year, and Thomas's finish today was comparable to Gavin's last year, and the same down the list. So we had lower placed at fourth and fifth today replacing our two finishers in the top 100 last year. While on paper the 200 points Good Counsel beat us by looks like an enormous margin, I've find that large margins in invitational meets like today's is not indicative of an insurmountable gap in the much smaller WCAC Championship.
Varsity B
Here are the results for our Varsity B athletes (277 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Varsity B race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and third mile splits:
93 Jaiden Mosley (So.) - 20:05.1 [(1) 5:57, (2) 6:55, (3) 7:13]*
182 Hayward Smith-Cassidy (Jr.) - 21:42.2 [(1) 6:17, (2) 7:41, (3) 7:44]*
217 Lance Bigelow (So.) - 22:25.5 [(1) 6:45, (2) 7:57, (3) 7:43]*
219 Julius Gamble (So.) - 22:30.8 [(1) 6:22, (2) 7:31, (3) 8:37]*
222 London Bailey (Jr.) - 22:35.2 [(1) 7:01, (2) 8:02, (3) 7:32] PR by 3 minutes 17 seconds
234 Dominic Williams-Dzirasa (Jr.) - 23:03.4 [(1) 6:57, (2) 8:17, (3) 7:49]*
235 Lucas Arzayus (Jr.) - 23:03.7 [(1) 7:14, (2) 7:56, (3) 7:53]*
241 Manuel Legaspi (Sr.) - 23:32.6 [(1) 6:30, (2) 8:50, (3) 8:12] PR by 52 seconds
250 Cameron Polk (So.) - 24:02.3 [(1) 7:05, (2) 8:28, (3) 8:29]*
253 Mathias Roy (Jr.) - 24:31.0 [(1) 7:23, (2) 8:40, (3) 8:28]*
One of my favorite things about coaching cross country is the lack of politics. The fastest seven runners run on varsity. With very few, very rare exceptions, it's an obvious decision because you've got time on paper for your athletes from their last race where everyone runs the same course in, roughly, the same conditions. The first race of the season is always difficult. Based on our quality workouts, there were two guys on our varsity team who Jaiden probably could have replaced in our Varsity A race today. One of those two beat his time and one of them did not. Jaiden has now clearly staked out a spot right in the heart of our varsity lineup.
The first thing that stood out to me as I looked through these splits was that London ran his race today almost identically to how he ran his three reps of mile repeats on Wednesday. He ran a fast first mile, ran about a minute slower on the second rep, and then split the difference for his third repeat. I don't remember his exact splits from Wednesday, but hopefully he can find that middle ground earlier in his workouts and, subsequently, his races going forward. As it stands, this was a much better debut for London than last season's debut where he ran 25:46 for a little over 3 miles with breaks at the Woodward Relays, and he did it with no breaks today.
Lucas ran the most even race of anybody on Varsity B today. His slowest mile was only 42 seconds off of his fastest mile. Nobody else was able to keep that gap within a minute (though London came close to doing so). Over the past three seasons, one commonality between the best races I've seen from our athletes is that they keep the difference between their fastest and slowest mile to within about 45 seconds. This tells me that Lucas's strategy doesn't need much improvement. He also dropped about 40 seconds from his time at last year's WCAC championship, which is remarkable. While WCAC's is 160 meters longer, it is a much faster course, takes place at the end of the season when you are (ideally) in the best shape you'll be in for the fall, and that WCAC race was a 1 minute 40 seconds PR for Lucas!
Unfortunately I just don't have the time to go into great detail about all ten guys from our Varsity B race, but I am proud of all of them. Some of them, I know, are thrilled with their season debuts (and in some cases their high school cross country debuts). And I know some of them are disappointed in their times. Whichever category you find yourself in, it was a successful meet as long as you learned something from this race that you can apply to practices and/or your next meet.
Team Results
1. Severna Park 15 points (This represents a perfect score, the lowest score you can earn in a cross country meet under the most common scoring system.)
2. River Hill 68 points
3. Howard 101 points
...
7. Our Lady of Good Counsel 225 points
...
23. St. Mary's Ryken 715 points
...
25. DeMatha 776 points
As I often point out, and as I alluded to above, point totals add up fast in any meet that places more than 200 athletes on the line. JV races area also tough for smaller teams (and despite our increased numbers this year, we are a smaller team). Even big teams that don't have a lot of elite talent tend to wind up with a lot of depth that clogs up the first half of the field in any JV race, which is what the Varsity B race essentially was today.
Open Race
Here are the results for our Open Race athletes (404 total entries including boys and girls in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Open race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and third mile splits:
110 Julius Haynes (Jr.) - 22:31.8 [(1) 6:19, (2) 8:15, (3) 7:57]*
119 Tariq Lewis (Fr.) - 22:43.8 [(1) 6:28, (2) 8:07, (3) 8:08]*
123 Sean Leonard (Fr.) - 22:53.1 [(1) 7:49, (2) 7:39, (3) 7:25]*
241 James Carroll (So.) - 25:41.0 [(1) 7:36, (2) 8:57, (3) 9:08]*
253 Ronald Rucker (Fr.) - 25:56.8 [(1) 6:44, (2) 9:52, (3) 9:20]*
295 Caleb Ghatt (Jr.) - 27:15.2 [(1) 7:37, (2) 9:38, (3) 10:00] PR by 1 minute 39 seconds
300 Bodior Elliott (Jr.) - 27:23.6 [(1) 8:04, (2) 8:49, (3) 10:30]*
321 Jacob Robertson (Fr.) - 28:12.0 [(1) 7:50, (2) 9:45, (3) 10:37]*
327 Christopher Lamb (So.) - 28:18.3 [(1) 7:50, (2) 10:08, (3) 10:20]*
361 Ryan Kasner (So.) - 30:03.8 [(1) 8:49, (2) 10:29, (3) 10:45]*
392 Garett Joldersma (So.) - 32:31.5 [(1) 8:41, (2) 11:29, (3) 12:21]*
397 Drew Robertson (Sr.) - 33:46.5 [(1) 9:11, (2) 12:03, (3) 12:32]*
404 Ian Brown (Fr.) - 45:20.6 [(1) 10:05, (2) 14:59, (3) 20:16]*
Julius hasn't had much time to train with us yet, but his soccer background certainly helped him quite a bit today. He fatigued a lot in the middle of the race but found his way back to a rhythm he could hold to the end. As he continues to transition into cross country workouts, I think we can expect to see him drop quite a bit of time off this first race.
Sean got faster every single mile. Even when you hold back a bit at the start, that's not easy to do. This suggests that he can run at least 30 seconds faster for his 5k, and probably a good bit more, but it may take a few weeks or more to find that ideal pace in each part of the race.
Several of our athletes aren't yet able to keep all three of their splits under 10 minutes, but that will come with time. After the finish, Gavin thought Ryan had broken 29 minutes and we were all very excited. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. Ryan has yet to break 30 minutes in a cross country race but he nearly did so today in the very first race of the season. He only broke 31 minutes once all of last year, so this was an excellent season opener for him and I'm convinced it's only a matter of time until he does break 29 minutes.
Ian was dealing with some ankle pain this morning and it was going to be a last-minute decision on whether he would run or not. I taped his ankle up as best as I could so he could test it out on the warm up. At the line, he said his ankle hadn't hurt him on the warmup, the tape job just wasn't particularly comfortable. Unfortunately the pain in his ankle came back during the race and he had to walk a good deal of the second half. Coach Anthony checked with him a little past the two mile mark and Ian wanted to finish. I really admire his resolve and I'm looking forward to finding out what his 5k time is when his ankle isn't hurt and he's able to run the whole way.
While Milesplit does have scores listed for this race, the open race was not officially scored for teams.
Final Thoughts
I was really happy to see several of our athletes head down into the woods and then walk out as Ian finished the final mile of his race. It's often difficult to support teammates in that way during the first few races of a meet because many athletes also have to focus on and prepare for their races later in the day. But I'm always thrilled to see, at the end of a meet when people are ready to go home, our young men rallying around one of their teammates. It's one of those moments that I won't soon forget.
Thank you again to the Forans for allowing us to use their tents for the team today. We were very lucky to avoid more than a couple spots of light drizzle, but even with the sun it was good for the athletes to have some shelter to return to after their races. Thank you to Ms. Davis-Haynes for allowing us to use her wagon; it was a huge help in transporting our things back to the bus. And of course thank you to all of the parents who supplies water, Gatorade, and food for the boys, not to mention those of you who were able to attend the meet to support the team and watch your sons run. Very few teenagers are adept at expressing it, but they all appreciate you being there.
"There may be people that have more talent than you, but there's no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do." - Derek Jeter