2021 WCAC Championship

Today was a gorgeous fall day with some true cross country course conditions, perfect for our championship meet.

Due to yesterday's rain, one part of the intended course was too washed out to run safely, so the meet director adjusted our course and, after remeasuring, found it to be 3 miles rather than a full 5k.

Thankfully it's still a fairly standard distance, and one we've raced before this year, rather than an odd distance like the 2.95 miles we ran at this course for the Glory Days Invitational three years ago. That makes it easier to compare to times our guys have run this year. I will also convert times to a 5k in order to report on virtual PRs.

Let's jump right into the results. Note that WCACs traditionally does not measure times to the tenth or hundredth of a second. Alongside our athletes' times and mile splits, I will note the following:

• CTs (converted times) to the 5k will be marked in bold;

• PRs (personal records) in the cross country 3-mile will be noted in blue while virtual PRs in the cross country 5k based on their CTs will be marked in light blue;

• SBs (season bests) in the cross country 3-mile will be noted in red while virtual SBs in the cross country 5k based on their CTs will be marked in light red;

• Athletes who have never run a 3-mile in cross country before will have a blue asterisk (*) to note that this becomes their PR because it's their first time running the distance.

Freshman

Here are the results for our freshmen athletes (46 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 mile splits:

3 Hayden Walsh - 18:30 [(1) 5:50, (2) 6:20, (3) 6:20] CT-19:12 PR by 1 minute 3 seconds | Virtual PR by 22 seconds

11 William Jackson - 19:33 [(1) 5:51, (2) 6:36, (3) 7:06] CT-20:17 PR by 1 minute 36 seconds

36 Brendan Dougherty - 23:58 [(1) 7:40, (2) 8:10, (3) 8:08] CT-24:52 PR by 3 minutes 27 seconds

43 Carter Leecost - 27:20 [(1) 8:10, (2) 9:36, (3) 9:34] CT-28:22 PR by 41 seconds

Considering how muddy the course was, it does make some sense that the course ran a bit slower than usual and might not have been a PR course for us at full distance. But that makes it all the more impressive that Hayden still hit a sizable virtual PR.

William wasn't too far off his recent performances and probably suffered a little bit from going out as hard as he did. He's usually about 15 to 20 seconds behind Hayden at the mile mark and he was right on his tail in this race. He fell off the pace in second and third miles and finished further behind Hayden than he usually does but was still within 20 seconds of a virtual PR. It won't be long before he's strong enough to go out that aggressively but then maintain it.

Brendan and Carter pushed themselves very hard today, especially to get up the hills on the course. They aren't at a point yet where they can do that and then still maintain their tempo on the flat and downhill portions; they have to pick one or the other. Today it probably would have suited both better to focus more on hitting their tempo on the long downhills than pressing the short, steep uphills, but again I respect the aggression. They're both running the 3+ mile distance for the first time this year, too, and as they get more experience they'll learn better what their ideal racing strategy is.

Team Results

1. The Heights 27 points

2. Gonzaga 30 points

3. St. John's 79 points

4. Paul VI 106 points

5. Bishop Ireton 138 points

There were only five full teams in the freshman race. You need five to score and we only had four today.

Varsity B

Here are the results for our Varsity B athletes (101 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 mile splits:

40 Desmond Holt (Sr.) - 20:42 [(1) 6:27, (2) 7:02, (3) 7:13] CT-21:29 * | Virtual SB by 3 seconds

56 Jacob Robertson (Sr.) - 21:20 [(1) 6:46, (2) 7:16, (3) 7:18] CT-22:08 PR by 2 minutes 52 seconds | Virtual PR by 49 seconds

65 Austin Boynes (Sr.) - 22:09 [(1) 7:09, (2) 7:32, (3) 7:28] CT-22:59 PR by 54 seconds | Virtual PR by 12 seconds

74 Peter Brown (So.) - 22:38 [(1) 7:02, (2) 7:40, (3) 7:56] CT-23:29 PR by 3 minutes 29 seconds

78 Andrew Righi (So.) - 23:10 [(1) 7:35, (2) 7:57, (3) 7:38] CT-24:02 * | Virtual PR by 18 seconds

89 Ian Brown (Sr.) - 24:30 [(1) 7:35, (2) 8:17, (3) 8:38] CT-25:25 PR by 3 minutes 23 seconds

91 Maximo Legaspi (Jr.) - 24:47 [(1) 8:00, (2) 8:30, (3) 8:17] CT-25:43 PR by 3 minutes 29 seconds

93 Jaquada Moses (Jr.) - 26:38 [(1) 8:14, (2) 9:12, (3) 9:12] CT-27:38 PR by 7 minutes 10 seconds

95 Anthony Bardonille (So.) - 26:38 [(1) 8:12, (2) 9:26, (3) 9:00] CT-27:38 PR by 4 minutes 29 seconds | Virtual PR by 1 minutes 47 seconds

*99 Jackson McCormick (Sr.) - 27:20 [(1) 8:35, (2) 9:34, (3) 9:11] CT-28:22

I'll start by addressing Jackson's result. I unintentionally sabotaged him today. He didn't put his number on his jersey and because the Varsity B boys were immediately after the freshman boys, I did not get to the line until minutes before the race was scheduled to begin. I went into a bit of a panic and didn't stop to think that they might still be able to work out his results at the finish line from the chips on his shoes and sent him to get his number. He got it and returned to the line but, as best I can tell, he lost about 2 minutes and 36 seconds on the rest of the field, meaning he was running by himself virtually the entire race. It's hard to tell exactly how much time he could have taken off his time, but Jackson is used to being in the vicinity of Jacob and Austin around the mile mark or so and by starting so far back he didn't even have a chance to try and push through some nagging back pain he's been pushing through with the help of his teammates. The official results have Jackson just under 30 minutes so I've used the time he got off his watch, which he started when he left the starting line.

It's never a good feeling to sabotage one of your athletes, unintentionally or not, but it's especially difficult given that Jackson is a senior and has been such a wonderful presence on the team since he joined his sophomore year. It's the worst way I could have imagined learning this lesson regarding the chips. I won't make the same mistake in the future, and I'm very sorry, Jackson, that my lesson came at your expense.

Moving on to the rest of our Varsity B athletes, Jacob was the star of the show for us. He ran his heart out, building on his first sub-23 performance last week to turn in what would have been a near-sub-22 race on a full 5k. Simply outstanding!

Of course, I don't mean to steal Desmond's spotlight. He ran his best race of the year and his converted time is a virtual season best. He's been a great vocal leader for us all season but nobody can say he doesn't also lead by example. He's put the work in and he's been our top senior on JV all year because of it.

Austin, Andrew, and Anthony also all ran virtual PRs today! LA deserves a special shoutout because (a) he ran by far his best race of the season and (b) he put it all on the line with that dive across the finish line. That dive was so incredible that I had to be reminded by Coach Ant that the spikes were on his shoes... behind his torso. Still, I don't think I've ever seen one of my athletes do that and I loved it.

Peter's converted time is only about a second off his 5k PR, Ian's was 11 seconds off his, and Jaquada's converted time was about 10 seconds off his season best.

Max ran a really interesting race. It's only the second time all year that he's run all of his splits under 9 minutes and yet his converted time was more than 20 seconds off his season best. As it happens, it was only a few seconds slower than his last parkrun time, which is where he ran his other race with all three splits in the 8s. Next season we'll try and put some thought into how to best strategize for him, because he seems to run a bit better in races where he goes out a bit faster (sometimes around 7:30) even if it means having a split in the 9s, as well. Something to think about, for sure.

Team Results

1. The Heights 15 points (perfect score)

2. Gonzaga 55 points

3. St. John's 70 points

4. Good Counsel 123 points

5. O'Connell 151 points

6. Paul VI 176 points

7. Ireton 212 points

8. DeMatha 213 points

9. Ryken 250 points

I think we've finished bottom three in the Varsity B race in all but one year since I've been the coach. I'm not sure what that says considering our Top 7 has significantly improved in that span. The one year when we didn't finish bottom three, and in fact placed 4th, was in 2019 when we had our biggest team to date.

Varsity B is all about depth and clearly The Heights has tremendous depth as they achieved a perfect score, sweeping the top five places in the race. Our roster had about 38 students on it in 2019 and we have just 22 right now. Hopefully as we continue to move through and beyond the pandemic, and after putting together a successful season while dealing with restrictions, we'll be able to regrow the program back to those numbers or perhaps even beyond them!

Varsity A

Here are the results for our Varsity A athletes (65 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 last mile splits:

2 Jayden Keels (Jr.) - 16:17 [(1) 5:17, (2) 5:28, (3) 5:32] CT-16:54 PR by 20 seconds | Virtual PR by 17 seconds

8 Christopher Toomer (Jr.) - 16:29 [(1) 5:37, (2) 5:34, (3) 5:18] CT-17:06 PR by 1 minute 20 seconds | Virtual PR by 30 seconds

10 Sayid Shakur (So.) - 16:44 [(1) 5:30, (2) 5:31, (3) 5:43] CT-17:22 PR by 28 seconds | Virtual PR by 7 seconds

19 Michael Metz (Jr.) - 17:13 [(1) 5:38, (2) 5:43, (3) 5:52] CT-17:52 PR by 58 seconds | Virtual PR by 32 seconds

24 Ian Parsons (Jr.) - 17:19 [(1) 5:28, (2) 5:53, (3) 5:58] CT-17:58 PR by 37 seconds

27 Graham Fenn (So.) - 17:27 [(1) 5:38, (2) 5:46, (3) 6:03] CT-18:06 *

48 Tariq Lewis (Sr.) - 18:32 [(1) 5:41, (2) 6:17, (3) 6:34] CT-19:14 PR by 1 minute 1 seconds | Virtual PR by 6 seconds

Where do I even begin? Five of our seven ran virtual PRs, a couple of them by half a minute! I can't say enough about any of these guys but I'll try to at least say a few words and then, as usual, put their performances in some historical context.

Jayden ran one of the most incredible races I've ever seen. He was in a dog fight with three other athletes from three different schools for second place. He may not have closed the gap on Grabarz from St. John's, but he did exactly what I hoped he would do and broke up their 1-2 punch by finishing second. That was a very talented group Jayden was mixed up with and all three of them will be back next year. They won't give up on getting Jayden back, but after beating them today he should feel very confident that he'll beat them again next year. I already felt like this group of juniors and sophomores might need a slightly more advanced workout plan than our VC plan and after today I'm dedicated to developing that plan to make sure Jayden can open up a bit of a cushion on those guys and the rest of our varsity can close what is still a 7-point gap to St. John's even without any seniors.

Christopher's last month of races has been incredible. I was beginning to wonder if the work I saw from him this summer had all shown in his early season results and then over these past few weeks he's just been taking massive chunks of time off his performances and today was the most impressive of them all. He ran a huge negative split in his final mile to eliminate a 10-second deficit to Sayid and then took off in the final quarter mile. Sayid couldn't quite stick with him but he still ran a solid virtual PR of his own. Sayid got out a bit too slowly off the line and though he wound up just 13 seconds behind Jayden at the mile mark, he had to do so much work to get through the field of runners in that time that he didn't have the legs to finish the way he normally does.

I've run out of platitudes for Michael so I'll just say "wow!" He made a gutsy move just before the 2-mile mark to jump a gap between Ian and Graham. He knew it was going to hurt and he didn't care. He told me after the race that he figured it would be better to hurt then on a flat part of the course rather than to do it and hurt even more on the hill he was approaching. He trusted that the training he's done would allow him to make that move and still finish the race and he did just that.

Ian continues to be very aggressive in the first mile. To his credit, he maintained much better today than he did last week. In fact, today's race splits were very similar to his splits at Gunpowder Falls two weeks ago, which might be why his converted time was only 10 seconds off the PR he set on that course.

Graham's first 3-mile race went very well. His converted time was less than two seconds off his 5k PR and almost gave us six runners with converted times under 18 minutes for the 5k; simply remarkable!

And last but most certainly not least, our 2021 senior captain. Tariq took a full minute off his time from Centennial and ran a virtual PR. I couldn't ask for anything more from the leader of our team other than to lead by example and run the best race of his career. He certainly did that.

Now for some historical context. The 3-mile run is not as common and so we don't have as many results, but all seven of our athletes ran Top 50 times for DeMatha since 2000 in the 3-mile run:

• Jayden Keels - #3 for DeMatha since 2000, #2 for DeMatha juniors since 2000

• Christopher Toomer - #5 for DeMatha since 2000, #3 for DeMatha juniors since 2000

• Sayid Shakur - #10 for DeMatha since 2000, #2 for DeMatha sophomores since 2000

• Michael Metz - #15 for DeMatha since 2000, #8 for DeMatha juniors since 2000

• Ian Parsons - #17 for DeMatha since 2000, #10 for DeMatha juniors since 2000

• Graham Fenn - #19 for DeMatha since 2000, #4 for DeMatha sophomores since 2000

• Tariq Lewis - #40 for DeMatha since 2000, #10 for DeMatha seniors since 2000

As for using converted times to get a sense of where our guys would rank among the best cross country runners we've had since 2000 at DeMatha:

• Jayden would rank 4th and would have the #11 time by a junior since 2000

• Christopher would rank 7th and would have the #15 time by a junior since 2000

• Sayid would rank 10th and would have the #8 time by a sophomore since 2000

• Michael would rank 23rd since 2000

Team Results

1. St. John's 35 points

2. DeMatha 63 points

3. The Heights 97 points (6th place: 31st)

4. Gonzaga 97 points (6th place: 36th)

5. O'Connell 119 points

6. Paul VI 152 points

7. Good Counsel 161 points

8. Ryken 221 points

9. Ireton 265 points

As I mentioned above, when you eliminate our seniors we still have about a 7-point deficit to St. John's. But that's not an insurmountable lead by any stretch. They'll be the favorites to repeat next year, which will make it easier for us to follow the axiom "Run like you're in first, train like you're in second."

I'm really happy not only that we finished second but that we were closer to first than to third. We're going to have a fantastic team next year and I can't wait to get back to work with you guys.

Final Thoughts

I am beyond proud of everybody's effort today and all season. I hope that this taste of success makes you hungry for more. I can tell you that I'm already moving on from today's second place finish because I'm competitive. I want first. I've never been one to settle and now that we can see that it's within reach I want it.

With that said, I'm the coach. It's expected that I'll move on before you all do. I'm the one who needs to prepare and lead. So while I'm ready to get us through private school states, I'm also ready to start prepping for next year as soon as we get through that meet.

You all have a while before I'll be ready to give you anything you need for next year, so enjoy this. This was a huge victory for us. You all ran great races and we not only finished in the Top 3 but we surpassed that expectation.

I want to thank you all for trusting me, for trusting Coach Ant and Coach Hoke, and for buying in to our coaching. I'm very confident in our abilities as coaches, but you can't get confirmation unless the athletes buy in and follow your coaching. When you do that, it allows us to find out what works and what doesn't, and I think we all have a pretty good sense of that thanks to your cooperation and it will only make us better coaches going forward.

I also want to thank the parents for trusting me. I know this was a difficult year dealing with various protocols; I've tried to help it go as smoothly as possible via communication (I know I can sometimes be a bit verbose). It was also new for us to adjust our practice locations each week based on the workouts we were doing. I appreciate you allowing me to do that, I truly do think it made a difference that we were able to alternate our quality days between DeMatha and Greenbelt Lake for specific workouts. Next year Greenbelt Park should be open again and we will add that back to the mix, as well.

And finally I want to thank Coach Ant and Coach Hoke. I couldn't have done everything on the back end without your guys' help and expertise in the day-to-day. I often feel very run down as I write my post-WCAC write-up. That couldn't be further from the truth right now. I feel energized and it has less to do with our results today and more to do with the way this season operated for us. You two made that possible and I appreciate you guys so much.

For those of you continuing through private school state's, I'll see you all this week. I'll get practice details out as soon as I can but that will probably mean tomorrow (Sunday) for this week. Sorry for the delay.

Today's quote is particularly for Jayden and Michael, who took risks with how aggressively they ran parts of today's race.

"Don't let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning." - Robert Kiyosaki