2022 Chesapeake Invitational

Winning sure does feel good. But honestly, that's not what makes today successful for DeMatha cross country. Sure, we brought home a really nice trophy and a bunch of medals (20 of them in all!), but what really stands out about today is that every DeMatha athlete that crossed the finish line did so with a new personal record!

You guys have been waiting all day to see results (they were hidden on a website other than Athletic.net and MileSplit), so I won't take any more of your time. Let's get right to them.

As always, in blue, I have noted all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k (3.1 mile) at the meet. Additionally, in red, I have noted all athletes who set a new SB (season best), but not PR, in the cross country 5k. Some of our seniors ran on this course as freshmen, too, and if they ran faster today than they did then I've included in silver their new PCB (personal course best) for the Chesapeake High School 5k course.

Varsity

Here are the results for our Varsity A athletes (179 total finishers 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:

6 Jayden Keels (Sr.) - 16:37.8 [(1) 5:03, (2) 5:37, (3.1) 5:58] PR by 13 seconds PCB by 1 minute 46 seconds

11 Christopher Toomer (Sr.) - 16:55.6 [(1) 5:18, (2) 5:39, (3.1) 5:59] PR by 40 seconds PCB by 2 minutes 52 seconds

13 Sayid Shakur (Jr.) - 17:05.2 [(1) 5:16, (2) 5:41, (3.1) 6:08] PR by 24 seconds

15 Graham Fenn (Jr.) - 17:09.6 [(1) 5:19, (2) 5:39, (3.1) 6:12] PR by 44 seconds

18 Tarik Harris Jr. (Jr.) - 17:14.9 [(1) 5:19, (2) 5:44, (3.1) 6:12] PR by 1 minute 12 seconds

22 Ian Parsons (Sr.) - 17:18.6 [(1) 5:16, (2) 5:46, (3.1) 6:17] PR by 30 seconds PCB by 2 minutes 16 seconds

37 Michael Metz (Sr.) - 17:52.5 [(1) 5:24, (2) 5:53, (3.1) 6:36] PR by 33 seconds PCB by 2 minute 19 seconds

50 Jalen Neptune (So.) - 18:11.1 [(1) 5:43, (2) 6:02, (3.1) 6:26] PR by 27 seconds

67 Daden Grogan (So.) - 18:36.8 [(1) 5:42, (2) 6:05, (3.1) 6:50] PR by 30 seconds

James Westbrooks III (Jr.) - DNF [(1) 5:18, (2) 5:45]

This is the first time in DeMatha history, at least according to the records I have, that we've had seven finishers under 18 minutes in a 5k at any meet. We would have had eight if James hadn't been tripped up and unable to finish due to an ankle injury. He was right between Ian and Tarik at the 2-mile mark. Based on previous performances, he very well may have gotten up into that sub-17:10 group by the finish, but even conservatively putting him right between Tarik and Ian at the finish, he would have run a 30-second PR today.

Jayden ran great. He looked relaxed and in control in the lead group of four at the mile mark. Those top runners in the race just turned it on in the second mile, especially once they entered the wooded area, but he looks as strong as ever and it was great to see him right back in action after last week's scary injury.

Christopher ran a fantastic last mile. He was in a group with Sayid and Graham at the 2-mile mark (lots of pack running today!) and showed his ability to close out races. Remember that those third splits are not mile times, they're 1.1-mile times, so he averaged a 5:26 pace from where I saw him at the 2-mile mark to the finish line!

After Christopher, we had four more finishers cross the line in a span of 13 seconds. Michael, Jalen, and Daden rounded out our varsity finishers, averaging a 30-second PR among them. In fact, the average PR for our team was right in the 30-second range on varsity. Tarik's looks like an outlier because I only use DeMatha times since that's what I track, but I happen to know he ran 17:47 at the Maryland XC Invitational last year with Spalding, making today a 32-second official PR for him.

Team Results

1. DeMatha 63 points

2. River Hill 95 points

3. Crofton 110 points

4. Leonardtown 150 points

5. Oakdale 155 points

6. Chesapeake 174 points

7. Arundel 204 points

8. South River 217 points (6th place: 67 points)

9. Spalding 217 points (6th place: 75 points)

10. Old Mill 261 points

...

15. St. Mary's Ryken 424 points

...

20. Glen Burnie 595 points

Outside of the small Holy Cross meets during our Covid season in the fall of 2020, this is the first time since 2014, two years before I took over as DeMatha's head coach, that we've won an invitational. That year we won back-to-back meets at Landon and at Don Stoner, where we will be next Saturday.

This is a very exciting achievement. As I said after the awards ceremony today, the trophies and medals are not what we attended this meet to get. We go to these meets to get better and to prepare for the most important meets of the season at WCACs and the Private School State Championship. But winning a regular season meet still feels very good and is worth celebrating. Well done!

Junior Varsity

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes (171 total finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the JV race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

1 Hayden Walsh (So.) - 19:00.2 [(1) 5:52, (2) 6:21, (3.1) 6:47] PR by 34 seconds

3 Joshua Gresham (Jr.) - 19:05.3 [(1) 5:52, (2) 6:21, (3.1) 6:52] PR by 4 minutes 52 seconds

9 Roman Zentek (Fr.) - 19:42.3 [(1) 6:08, 6:45, (3.1) 6:49] PR by 2 minutes 12 seconds

10 William Jackson (So.) - 19:43.4 [(1) 5:53, (2) 6:37, (3.1) 7:13] PR by 18 seconds

40 Brandon Smoot (So.) - 20:52.4 [(1) 6:32, (2) 6:55, (3.1) 7:25] PR by 3 minutes 23 seconds

50 Nicholas Berry (Fr.) - 21:09.9 [(1) 6:18, (2) 7:00, (3.1) 7:52] PR by 2 minutes 7 seconds

61 Maximo Legaspi (Sr.) - 21:23.3 [(1) 6:39, (2) 7:05, (3.1) 7:39] PR by 3 minutes 13 seconds

62 Xavier Raymond (Fr.) - 21:29.1 [(1) 6:18, (2) 7:11, (3.1) 8:00] PR by 1 minute 36 seconds

65 Andrew Righi (Jr.) - 21:42.5 [(1) 6:41, (2) 7:10, (3.1) 7:52] PR by 2 minutes 37 seconds

69 Jesse Holland III (Fr.) - 21:51.6 [(1) 6:56, (2) 7:12, (3.1) 7:44] PR by 1 minute 26 seconds

81 Yaphet Negussie (Sr.) - 22:14.5 [(1) 6:58, (2) 7:14, (3.1) 8:03] PR by 1 minute 13 seconds PCB by 2 minutes 26 seconds

85 William Herman (Fr.) - 22:17.2 [(1) 7:01, (2) 7:31, (3.1) 7:45] PR by 1 minute 57 seconds

92 Peter Brown (Jr.) - 22:31.7 [(1) 6:58, (2) 7:29, (3.1) 8:05] PR by 56 seconds

95 Brendan Dougherty (So.) - 22:42.3 [(1) 6:58, (2) 7:33, (3.1) 8:11] PR by 1 minute 39 seconds

99 Cameron Lamb (Fr.) - 22:50.5 [(1) 7:08, (2) 7:26, (3.1) 8:17] PR by 1 minute 3 seconds

120 Daniel Traves (Fr.) - 23:42.9 [(1) 7:34, (2) 7:52, (3.1) 8:17] PR by 1 minute 20 seconds

143 Daman Decker (Sr.) - 25:01.7 [(1) 7:08, (2) 8:26, (3.1) 9:28] PR by 5 minute 10 seconds

152 Joseph LeGloahec (Fr.) - 26:15.0 [(1) 8:06, (2) 8:41, (3.1) 9:28]*

155 Amari Wright (So.) - 27:15.9 [(1) 7:38, (2) 9:34, (3.1) 10:04]*

159 Carter Leecost (So.) - 27:37.0 [(1) 8:21, (2) 9:21, (3.1) 9:55] PR by 2 seconds

160 Anthony Bardonille Jr. (Jr.) - 27:37.2 [(1) 7:56, (2) 9:41, (3.1) 10:00] PR by 1 minute 48 seconds

166 Akintunde Shoetan (So.) - 29:33.4 [(1) 8:26, (2) 10:08, (3.1) 10:59] PR by 7 minutes 22 seconds

171 Devin Lewis (So.) - 34:13.8 [(1) 10:18, (2) 11:48, (3.1) 12:08]*

Congratulations to Hayden for winning today's JV race. For as disappointed as he was following his race at Centennial a couple of weeks ago, he's put his head down these past two weeks and done everything he's needed to in practice to set himself up for a big PR, a season best by a minute and a half, and a first place medal.

Everyone ran so well in this race and there's just not enough time to call out everyone. Here, though, are a few performances that stood out to me beyond the PR numbers listed above:

Max and Yaphet both set new PRs today for the first time since the WCAC Championship meet their freshman year. I'm so proud of the work they've put in and I'm excited to see how much more time they can cut off this season.

We had four freshmen under 22 minutes today and another two within a minute of that threshold. That's fantastic! I think this is going to be the first time, at least in my tenure, that we will not have to run a freshman on varsity at championships and will have a full team of 5+ to run in the freshman race. As it stands right now it looks like we'll have nine in that race so I'm very excited to see how they do. (Note: Last year we did not have a freshman in our Top 7, but we only had four freshmen on the team and so did not score in the freshman race at WCACs).

Joseph, Amari, and Devin each completed their first 5k with us at Chesapeake. They did each run the 3-mile race at Centennial two weeks ago, though. Joseph took 2 minutes and 14 seconds off of his 5k converted time from that race, Amari took 4 minutes and 57 seconds off his, and Devin cut 1 minute and 46 seconds off of his converted time. So all three have improved quite a bit in the past two weeks, not only in their fitness but also in learning how to run this distance. This is particularly impressive given the only other race they've completed this season was last week's 2500m run, and going back and forth between such different distances can be very difficult for new runners. They will all continue to improve this season as they get more comfortable with the 3-mile+ distance.

Team Results

1. Leonardtown 45 points

2. DeMatha 58 points

3. South River 77 points

4. River Hill 78 points

5. Crofton 130 points

6. Chesapeake 167 points

7. Huntingtown 231 points

8. Spalding 264 points

9. St. Mary's Ryken 280 points

10. Oakdale 281 points

...

14. Queen Anne's 368 points

As I mentioned earlier, if we had only run the seven runners on varsity that most meets limit teams to, we could've won this race, too. But virtually every other team at the meet ran 10 on varsity, so it would've been a bit cheap on our part to do that. As it is, this result is a great indication of just how deep we are as a team.

We had 19 athletes finish today's course in under 22 minutes. This isn't a threshold I have access to historical data for, but it's hard to imagine that's happened very many times in DeMatha's history, if ever. We have a handful more runners who are very much within range of reaching that mark before the season ends. Keep up the great work, gentlemen! 

College Park parkrun (9/24/22)

We had one athlete run in the College Park parkrun Saturday morning. Lazarus has been under the weather the last few days, but he woke up early enough to do the parkrun. He's still not feeling great and so the cool air was especially tough on his breathing, but I'm really proud of him for giving a strong effort. Hopefully the rest of the weekend will be restful for him and he'll be good to go early in the week for practice:

37 Lazarus McCarthy (Fr.) - 27:30 [8:51/mile pace]

Final Thoughts

Before I wrap this up, I'd like to share with you a comment I received from today's meet director. "I had the opportunity to speak to some of your athletes. All I can say is what a great bunch of kids; respectful and fun to be around."

The way you carry yourself matters, gentlemen. Too often, good behavior goes unrecognized, but it doesn't mean it goes unnoticed. Poor behavior, certainly gets noticed, but I'm glad to be able to pass along some high praise for the way you conducted yourselves at today's meet. I hope you will continue to represent yourselves, your families, your teammates, your coaches, and your school the way you did today, in meets, in practice, and in your daily activities.

Quickly, here is some historical context for today's varsity performances:

• Jayden's time ties him for the 18th fastest 5k for DeMatha since 2000, the 19th fastest I have on record, and the 10th fastest by a senior. He moves up from 5th to 4th on our historical performers list for the 5k.

• Christopher's time ties him for the 32nd fastest 5k for DeMatha since 2000 and the 33rd fastest I have on record. He moves up from 14th to 7th on our historical performers list for the 5k. He is the 7th DeMatha cross country runner we have a record of breaking 17 minutes in the 5k.

• Sayid's time ties him for the 38th fastest 5k for DeMatha since 2000 and the 13th fastest by a junior in this era. He moves up from the 13th to the 8th fastest 5k runner for DeMatha since 2000.

• Graham's time gives him the 43rd fastest 5k for DeMatha since 2000. He moves up from the 25th to the 9th fastest 5k runner for DeMatha since 2000.

• Tarik's time ties him for the 47th fastest 5k for DeMatha since 2000. He is now the 10th fastest 5k runner for DeMatha since 2000 and the 28th to break 18 minutes in this era.

• Ian's time gives him the 51st fastest 5k for DeMatha since 2000. He moves up from the 24th to the 12th fastest 5k runner for DeMatha since 2000.

• Michael's time just missed DeMatha's Top 100 5k times since 2000 by about a second and a half. He is now the 26th fastest 5k runner for DeMatha since 2000 and the 29th to break 18 minutes in the 5k in this era.

Congratulations again on a great day. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, emphasis on rest. Get plenty of it. We get back to work on Monday to prepare for Don Stoner. I'll have this week's schedule out before the weekend is out.

"I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion." - Mia Hamm