2018 Howard County Invitational

I'll try to be a little more brief with my write-up today. We had great weather and an excellent course for a cross country race. I had never been to this course before, so with the exception of a few athletes who have ran at Centennial for youth cross country, this was brand new for all of us.

I can see why the course is generally at least 45 seconds slower than the course at Seahawk, and you likely have to add a bit to that for the average runner today due to the sloppy conditions last night's storm left in its wake.

The official length of today's course was 3 miles, though my watch registered 3.14mi on the course walk. Maybe I took a few turns a little wide.

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

Here are the results for our Varsity athletes (167 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 third mile splits:

101 Thomas Parsons (Jr.) - 19:15.8 [(1) 6:01, (2) 6:29, (3) 6:46]

121 James Hudson (So.) - 20:09.2 [(1) 6:11, (2) 6:56, (3) 7:02]

127 Hayward Smith-Cassidy (Jr.) - 20:19.5 [(1) 6:16, (2) 7:00, (3) 7:04] PR by 1 minute 23 seconds

129 Jaiden Mosley (So.) - 20:27.7 [(1) 6:24, (2) 7:02, (3) 7:02]

145 Steven Camarano (So.) - 21:08.9 [(1) 6:16, (2) 7:18, (3) 7:35] PR by 20 seconds

165 Gavin Foran (So.) - 25:01.7 [(1) 7:28, (2) 8:50, (3) 8:44]

Regardless of the actual distance our athletes ran today, I was very impressed by Thomas, Hayward, and Steven. Several of our athletes ran faster today than they did at Seahawk, but in most cases there was a significant commonality. They are all new runners. Last week's race gave them an opportunity to learn how to run a race of this distance. Additionally, in most cases, those athletes had quite a bit more time available for them to drop. Thomas, Hayward, and Steven are each experienced cross country runners and still managed to run faster than (or in Thomas's case, within 15 seconds of) their times from last week.

James ran a strong race and finished well within 50 seconds of last week's race, the buffer I mentioned in the meet information post earlier this week. Jaiden was within 30 seconds of his time at Seahawk and ran a much smarter race by slowing down his first mile by 27 seconds and then running even second and third mile splits. Last week there was a 1 minute 16 second difference between his fastest and slowest miles; today that difference was only 38 seconds.

Gavin struggled today but I'll leave it at that. He's never been one to back down during a race so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was dealing with some serious discomfort. We'll chalk this one up as an outlier. I'm confident he will come back with a better performance in two weeks.

Team Results

1. Loyola Blakefield 109 points

2. Severna Park 119 points

3. Howard 121 points

...

8. Gonzaga 187 points

...

21. DeMatha 592 points

Considering Dawson ran in the Frosh race, Gavin had a poor race, and Langston was out with his knee injury today, I'm remaining optimistic about this result. Remember that this was still a very large race and so points add up fast. Still, we need to pick things up a bit in practice moving forward.

Fresh/Soph

Here are the results for our Frosh athletes (317 total entries in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Fresh/Soph race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and third mile splits:

54 Dawson Grogan (Fr.) - 19:54.3 [(1) 5:37, (2) 6:42, (3) 7:35]

156 Tariq Lewis (Fr.) - 22:02.4 [(1) 6:32, (2) 7:29, (3) 8:01] PR by 41 seconds

236 Julius Gamble (So.) - 23:50.7 [(1) 7:32, (2) 7:48, (3) 8:31]

260 Sean Leonard (Fr.) - 24:39.3 [(1) 8:08, (2) 8:31, (3) 8:00]

288 James Carroll (So.) - 26:21.2 [(1) 7:58, (2) 8:55, (3) 9:28]

298 Christopher Lamb (So.) - 26:56.9 [(1) 7:58, (2) 9:02, (3) 9:57] PR by 1 minute 21 seconds

299 Jacob Robertson (Fr.) - 26:58.0 [(1) 7:48, (2) 9:13 (3) 9:57] PR by 1 minute 14 seconds

309 Garett Joldersma (So.) - 28:43.5 [(1) 8:59, (2) 9:33, (3) 10:12] PR by 3 minutes 48 seconds

311 Haroon Zaid (Fr.) - 29:17.7 [(1) 6:37, (2) 11:25, (3) 11:16]*

312 Ryan Kasner (So.) - 29:56.1 [(1) 9:01, (2) 10:09, (3) 10:46] PR by 8 seconds

317 Ian Brown (Fr.) - 33:25.8 [(1) 9:42, (2) 10:55, (3) 12:49] PR by 11 minutes 55 seconds

Dawson was running in first place at the mile mark and his first mile was only three seconds slower than his first mile at Seahawk. I'm chalking his race up to inexperience because he looked calm and relaxed at the mile. His body is capable of moving very quickly, so the pace likely felt pretty easy for him up to that point. Fatigue has a tendency to sneak up on you and Dawson never seemed to notice until that fatigue hit him. It may take more time to adjust because it felt so easy (i.e., Dawson may not be able to "feel his way" to a smart first mile). It likely will have to come from workouts where we try to create muscle memory of a specific pace that he can lock into during races.

Tariq ran a great race and has now established himself as a fringe varsity runner. He's not quite in the top 7 (he was our 7th finisher today but Langston was not challenged by today's performances for his varsity position), but Tariq is right in the mix.

Chris and Jacob both impressed me quite a bit. Jacob finished just a few seconds ahead of Chris last week and they both improved by similar amounts as Chris drew even in what could be a fun head-to-head competition.

Congrats to Garett and to Ryan for breaking 30 minutes for the first time! And great job to Ian, as well! His ankle clearly was feeling much better today.

Team Results

1. Severna Park 19 points

2. Gonzaga 107 points

3. Reservoir 110 points

...

19. DeMatha 550 points

If James Hudson, Jaiden, and Steven had run in this race, we would have finished in 15th with roughly 100 fewer points. With Langston in the mix, we probably would have moved up to 14th. We have a strong group of underclassmen and a bright future with this team.

Open

Here are the results for our Junior/Senior athletes (134 total entries 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:

83 Ashby Ervin (Sr.) - 22:07.7 [(1) 6:14, (2) 7:48, (3) 8:07]

84 Manuel Legaspi (Sr.) - 22:08.1 [(1) 6:51, (2) 7:34, (3) 7:43] PR by 1 minute 24 seconds

86 Julius Haynes (Jr.) - 22:14.5 [(1) 6:29, (2) 7:37, (3) 8:09] PR by 17 seconds

90 Keme Gbemiye-Etta (Sr.) - 22:25.5 [(1) 6:55, (2) 7:39, (3) 7:52]*

106 Lucas Arzayus (Jr.) - 23:36.7 [(1) 7:28, (2) 7:58, (3) 8:11]

109 Dominic Williams-Dzirasa (Jr.) - 23:46.6 [(1) 7:11, (2) 7:57, (3) 8:39]

120 Caleb Ghatt (Jr.) - 25:00.7 [(1) 7:39, (2) 8:34, (3) 8:48] PR by 2 minutes 15 seconds

123 Mathias Roy (Jr.) - 26:01.8 [(1) 7:45, (2) 8:47, (3) 9:30]

128 Bodior Elliott (Jr.) - 27:23.3 [(1) 8:16, (2) 9:19, (3) 9:48] PR by 0.3 seconds

133 Drew Robertson (Sr.) - 30:53.9 [(1) 9:00, (2) 10:52, (3) 11:02] PR by 2 minutes 53 seconds

Ashby has run the last two races through pain in his lower extremities. Today it seemed to be concentrated around his right ankle and Achilles tendon. We'll work with the trainers to see what we can do over the next two weeks to get him healthy enough to race at Landon without sacrificing more practice time than we need to.

Manuel hung back a bit in the first mile and was able to close well in the final two miles. Keme ran a very similar race to Manuel, only losing about five seconds each mile to him. Julius still has a lot of work ahead of him learning his pace, but he did run faster than he did last week on not only a more difficult course, but one that had been chewed up by five other races that had already been run.

Lucas was a strong fifth man for our open team and Caleb obliterated the 3 mile PR he set last week.

Team Results

1. Severna Park 38 points

2. River Hill 42 points

3. Howard 80 points

...

11. Gonzaga 328 points

12. DeMatha 355 points

It makes a huge difference when you have five athletes all finish within about 20 places of each other. The only thing better is for that to happen up near the front of the race. Still, it feels good to be just one place behind Gonzaga in any race considering how many athletes they have on their team. Great job guys!

Final Thoughts

Out of 27 athletes representing DeMatha at today's meet, 13 set new personal records, including five of ten in the open race and six of eleven in the frosh race. Two more made their 3-mile cross country debuts. Considering how tough today's course was, I am thrilled with a 50-percent PR rate. We have a lot of work to do, especially with our varsity athletes and those on the bubble, but I'm excited by our young runners and by the work our junior varsity guys put in today. You guys clearly have a desire to improve and that excites me.

"Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is." - Vince Lombardi