2017 WCAC Championship

Of our 22 athletes who ran today, 18 set new personal records and one other athlete set a season best. We got fourth, which isn't the third place finish that was our goal entering the season or the lofty hope that we could reach second place. We can be bummed, but there's no reason to be disappointed. We made sure O'Connell had to run the race of their life to beat us. They did, but we can hang our hats on the fact that we our best races of the season.

As we get to the results, notice that we had nine runners under 20 minutes. I'm not sure when we last had nine such runners, but it's been quite some time. Six of them are underclassmen, so we have a very bright young corps of runners and we've get several other young guys who will join them under 20 minutes next season.

Freshman Race

Here are the results for our freshman athletes (53 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the freshman race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits. If you ran a PR or SB, I have also included how much you beat your previous best by:

9 Creedence Jackson - 19:48 [(1) 6:01, (2) 6:39, (3.1) 7:08] PR by 1 minute 7 seconds

16 Steven Camarano - 20:46 [(1) 6:16, (2) 7:08, (3.1) 7:22] PR by 1 minute

25 Robert Gordon - 21:27 [(1) 6:34, (2) 7:16, (3.1) 7:37] PR by 47 seconds

33 Cameron Polk - 22:26 [(1) 6:48, (2) 7:29, (3.1) 8:09]

44 Nathaniel Ager - 23:25 [(1) 7:06, (2) 7:54, (3.1) 8:25]

50 James Carroll - 26:59 [(1) 7:35, (2) 9:22, (3.1) 10:02]

52 Glenn Smithson - 28:19 [(1) 7:55, (2) 9:40, (3.1) 10:44] PR by 30 seconds

Nathaniel was less than 20 seconds off his PR. Cameron was less than 10 seconds off his despite being hampered by some knee pain the past couple weeks. James has been dealing with an ankle injury for at least a week and a half now and felt a bit of a pop somewhere in the first mile of his race, so I'm proud of him for gutting it out. I'd expect no less from a rugby player.

Creedence's most recent PR was set just last week at Georgetown Prep. I estimated that Prep's course is roughly 45 seconds slower than today's, so I expected the PR from him, but I didn't expect him to jump from just barely breaking 21 minutes to smashing his way into the 19s. To put his time into perspective, Matthew's freshman PR was 19:32 on a course in North Carolina that is at least 10-15 seconds faster than the course we ran today. If that's any indication of what Creedence is capable of, and what our other freshmen are capable of, we have a very bright future. There were a few freshmen who ran in varsity and JV, all either from DeMatha or St. Mary's Ryken (Ryken had just four freshmen and chose to run one on JV and three on varsity rather than putting them in the JV race). Creedence was still the 12 fastest freshman runner in the WCAC today.

Steven and Robert have gotten more and more comfortable as the season has progressed and now that they have a full season of high school running under their belts, I think they've got a lot more in the tank going forward.

Glenn has dealt with a few injuries on and off through the season. He's had to sit out of last week's meet at Georgetown Prep as a precautionary measure. He seemed to have a pretty good week of practice after missing last week's race and it showed in his race.

Team Results

1. Gonzaga 32 points

2. Bishop O'Connell 38 points

3. St. John's 90 points

4. DeMatha 110 points

5. Paul VI 114 points

6. Bishop Ireton 127 points

Incomplete teams: Bishop McNamara (3 finishers) and Good Counsel (4 finishers)

If every freshman who ran in any race today had run in the freshman race we would have moved up to third and it would have been a respectable third place (Gonzaga - 39 points, O'Connell - 46 points, DeMatha - 62 points, St. John's - 99 points). We undoubtedly have one of the strongest freshman groups in the conference.

Varsity B

Here are the results for our Varsity B athletes (115 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 last 1.1 mile splits. If you ran a PR or SB, I have also included how much you beat your previous best by:

32 Hayward Smith-Cassidy (So.) - 19:54 [(1) 6:02, (2) 6:44, (3.1) 7:08] PR by 28 seconds

41 Manuel Legaspi (Jr.) - 20:11 [(1) 6:06, (2) 6:43, (3.1) - 7:22] PR by 26 seconds

58 London Bailey (So.) - 20:56 [(1) 6:30, (2) 7:02, (3.1) 7:24] PR by 1 minute 56 seconds

61 Mathias Roy (So.) - 21:05 [(1) 6:30, (2) 7:01, (3.1) 7:34] PR by 18 seconds

68 Keme Gbemiye-Etta (Jr.) - 21:22 [(1) 6:40, (2) 7:17, (3.1) 7:25] PR by 52 seconds

94 Drew Robertson (Jr.) - 23:30 [(1) 7:08, (2) 8:00, (3.1) 8:22] PR by 2 minutes 4 seconds

97 Lucas Arzayus (So.) - 23:44 [(1) 7:12, (2) 8:03, (3.1) 8:29] PR by 1 minute 40 seconds

102 Bodior Elliott (So.) - 23:56 [(1) 7:14, (2) 7:48, (3.1) 8:54] PR by 11 seconds

Obviously I am impressed with all of our varsity B runners, given they all set new personal bests today. Hayward broke 20 minutes for the first time this season and Manuel just barely missed out on breaking that barrier. I had no idea what to expect from Hayward entering this season considering Coach Sam and I couldn't seem to get him to consistently run under 2:30 in the 800 last track season. Then after he ran his worst race of the season on this same course three weeks ago, I wasn't sure if that would get into his head or not. Clearly Hayward is a resilient person. He beat his time from this course by 2 minutes and 15 seconds.

Manuel broke 23 minutes just once last season. He broke 22 at Landon this year and never looked back. I know the training this year has helped him tremendously, but Coach Sam and I deserve very little of the credit compared to what Manuel deserves, himself. He has been motivated all season by the opportunity to run on varsity, and he eared the chance to do so on this course a few weeks ago. Even without that motivating factor today (a handful of our top guys will not be at private school states due to winter sports, so Manuel will run varsity there if he continues), he pushed himself to another big PR. I'm excited for what his senior year will hold.

London ran 22:08 in his first 5k last year and had been in a funk every since. Three weeks ago, on this course, he ran 24:26. That's right; he ran 3 minutes and 30 seconds faster today than he did just three weeks ago here. Hopefully he remains as motived to train during the summer as he seemed when I talked to him after the race today because he should be under 20 minutes by the middle of next season.

Our other guys all ran excellent races. Keme's best race to date had been the Wildcat Invitational four weeks ago. I'm looking forward to working with him through the track season. I think he's a candidate to break 20 next year as a senior. Drew ran a huge PR today. He's come a long way from breaking 27 minutes by just a tenth of a second in his first 5k of the season. I was slightly disappointed that his finishing kick wasn't as fast as I'm used to seeing, but that's the tradeoff for using your energy efficiently during the entire course of the race. It's a trade I'll take every day of the week and twice on Saturday.

Lucas and Bodior are both first-year runners. Every other sophomore on our roster had some previous cross country or track experience. Both have come a long way this year. Lucas started the season with a 25:24 at Landon while Bodior beat Drew by less than half a second in the same race. Both have become much smarter runners over the course of the season and I'm glad I have two more years to work with them and see how much more time we can knock off.

Team Results

1. St. John's 24 points

2. Gonzaga 49 points

3. Bishop O'Connell 58 points

4. Good Counsel 125 points

5. Bishop Ireton 138 points

6. DeMatha 161 points

7. St. Mary's Ryken 211 points

8. Paul VI 225 points

This is roughly where I expected us to be, mostly due to our numbers. Just based on how many athletes we had in this race compared to the other teams, not even looking at times, I didn't expect our JV team to finish any better than fifth, and I knew Good Counsel and Ryken with just five JV runners each were wild cards. As we continue to grow our team (I hope to have at least 30 athletes on the team next year), our varsity B squad will become more competitive within the conference.

As such, if you have friends in the school who aren't on the team but maybe have thought about joining or who you think would be good teammates (we'll worry later about whether they're fast or not), talk it up as we get toward the end of the spring. With 23 athletes, were had just the fifth most athletes out of the 10 teams in the conference (Gonzaga has 49, O'Connell has 39, St. John's has 34, and Ireton has 31 (just counting the boys for the co-ed schools)). Notice that all four of those teams beat us in the varsity B race, and all of them except Ireton beat us in the freshman and varsity races.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (67 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the varsity race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits. If you ran a PR or SB, I have also included how much you beat your previous best by:

8 Anthony Perry (So.) - 17:22 [(1) 5:24, (2) 5:47, (3.1) 6:11] PR by 56 seconds

10 Matthew Metz (Sr.) - 17:26 [(1) 5:22, (2) 5:47, (3.1) 6:17] PR by 31 seconds

22 John Ahalt (Sr.) - 18:05 [(1) 5:30, (2) 6:04, (3.1) 6:32] PR by 24 seconds

27 Thomas Parsons (So.) - 18:15 [(1) 5:34, (2) 6:01, (3.1) 6:40] PR by 33 seconds

35 Gavin Foran (Fr.) - 18:46 [(1) 5:53, (2) 6:16, (3.1) 6:37] PR by 16 seconds

43 James Hudson (Fr.) - 19:28 [(1) 6:00, (2) 6:32, (3.1) 6:56] PR by 10 seconds

45 Ashby Ervin (Jr.) - 19:32 [(1) 6:00, (2) 6:33, (3.1) 6:59] SB by 20 seconds

I honestly did not expect so many athletes to come in as fast as they did, so the fact that our guys were able to stay in contact and be competitive blew me away. The amount by which these guys set new season bests is incredible.

Part of me was a little bummed for Matthew that he wasn't our top finisher in his last WCAC cross country championship, but he was very gracious and grateful toward Anthony. He said if it weren't for Anthony passing him in the last mile of the race, he wasn't sure he'd be able to finish in a top 12 spot to earn a medal. On the flip side, I won't have to say we've graduated our top finisher as we head into next season, and that's very exciting! Anthony's time today is one of the 50 fastest DeMatha 5k times since 2000 and makes him the 7th fastest 5k runner at DeMatha in that span. He also ran the exact same time as I did in the WCAC championship my sophomore year, so he is tied for the 6th fastest sophomore time at DeMatha since 2000. Matthew moved up from the 19th to the 9th fastest 5k runner at DeMatha since 2000.

John and Thomas were not far behind Matthew and Anthony at the mile mark and they worked together very well all the way to the finish. Gavin got caught in no-man's land, behind John and Thomas but in front of James and Ashby. That can be a difficult place to be in, but he remained focused and did everything he had to do. He wound up running the second fastest freshman time of the day (one Gonzaga runner ran 18:22 in the freshman race).

James and Ashby worked together great. Ashby has had a rocky season, going into difficulty during some of the workouts and then again in the races. He's remained much more positive than I could have in his position so I have to give a ton of credit to him. Ashby may still be chasing his PR from sophomore year, but Matthew didn't break his sophomore PR until this year's Wildcat Invitational.

Looking back at the Glory Days meet three weeks ago, Gavin and James both got out much more conservatively today, about 10 seconds slower in the first mile than they did the first time they ran this course. Everybody else got out at least 10 seconds faster than last time. Their grit was truly on display today. The ability to push through fatigue and trust that your body will not fail you is one that can't really be coached. I can tell an athlete this as a fact, but it's up to the athlete to believe what I'm saying. Whether it was that or just sheer determination, these guy ran a heck of a race today and I'm so proud of their effort.

Team Results

1. Gonzaga 28 points

2. St. John's 60 points

3. Bishop O'Connell 94 points

4. DeMatha 102 points

5. Good Counsel 128 points

6. Paul VI 146 points

7. Bishop Ireton 178 points

8. St. Mary's Ryken 196 points

9. Archbishop Carroll 292 points

10. Bishop McNamara 303 points

The last time we had an athlete medal in the varsity race at championships was when John Brewer finished 9th in back to back seasons as a junior and a senior (2010 and 2011). We had two medalists today. Today was our lowest team score since 2009 when we last finished 3rd in the conference (we were 7 points better than our 109-point 4th place finish in 2015).

I couldn't have asked for more out of our guys today. O'Connell had the overall winner of the varsity race, and that helped them quite a bit. They'll still be pretty strong going forward as just one of their top five is graduating, but the good news is that their top guy can't score any fewer points next year than he did today. So while we move up, he can do nothing about it.

Gonzaga also has some strong sophomore and junior talent (like O'Connell, only their fourth man will graduate), but the good news is that St. John's will lose four seniors from their varsity team so that gap should close a bit.

Final Thoughts

I'm satisfied with our effort today, but none of us should be satisfied with fourth place. How far we can move up, and whether we move up, will be determined by our training next summer. Everybody started dropping their times a lot once we got to the speed portion of our training, but if you don't have the base from running miles over the summer that speed can only take you so far.

If you are trying out for a winter sport your season is done. Please wash and turn in your uniform(s) (some of our athletes have both JV and varsity uniforms) as soon as you are able. If you are continuing through to the Maryland Private School Championship, keep your jersey and look out for an email this weekend with practice details.

Our track runners should be continuing through the private school meet and then taking a break before they come out for track training. The only exception is if you intent to focus more on the sprints and have spoken to Coach CP or Coach Ed and they want you to start your break now so you can begin training sooner.

If you are participating in another winter sport (Basketball, wrestling, swimming, etc) but intend to run outdoor track in the spring, just keep me in the loop through the winter so that as your winter season come to a close Coach Sam and I can plan out how long we want your break to be and how we're going to get you into the swing of things.

We will have a cross country team banquet after the private school meet, either late in November or early in December. Once I have a date set, I will send out details. Last year we did a potluck and it seemed to work out well so I think we can plan to do something like that this year, as well. You can start thinking about what dish you might like to make. I'll try to create a signup so we can all know what everyone plans to bring. More on that later.

To those who are done: great season! Thank you for coming out/returning, and I look forward to having you guys back for outdoor track and/or cross country next season. To everyone else, let's have a fun next two weeks. Three of our varsity guys are done for the season, so this last meet is less about the team result and more about each of you running a personal course best at Georgetown Prep.