2022 Eagle Invitational

After it appeared early in the week that we were in for rain and sloppy conditions today, we wound up with another Saturday with beautiful weather for running. Enjoy it while we have it. We had great weather for virtually all of our races last year and eventually we're going to be faced with a torrential downpour to make up for it.

The conditions today, though, were ideal to the point that both the boys and girls course records were broken. Congratulations to Antonio Camacho-Bucks of Centennial (15:17.98) and Evelyn Rogers of Elizabeth Seton (18:13.30) on a couple of terrific races.

Our guys ran very well today and we're going to jump into our results in just a moment. Bear in mind that the distance for today's race was only 3 miles, not a full 5k. All of our returning athletes have run at least one 3-mile course since we attended this meet last year and our WCAC Championship course was adjusted to 3 miles last year. Others have not run a 3-miler yet.

With everyone's result I will provide their converted time (CT) for the 5k, which is the more standard distance for high school cross country. Note that there are several race converters out there, so if you plug your time into a converter and get a different result than I did, it's because I prefer the one provided by Chicago Endurance Sports.

I will, as always, notate all PRs (personal records) for the cross country 3-mile in blue. We won't have any official season bests since we haven't run this distance, but if the converted time would be a PR or a season best in the 5k, I will designate those as Virtual PRs or Virtual SBs, and of course for the athletes who ran this course last year I'll designate PCBs (personal course bests) where applicable.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (178 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:

9 Jayden Keels (Sr.) - 16:22.24 [(1) 5:11, (2) 5:39, (3) 5:32] CT-16:59 PCB by 16 seconds

27 Christopher Toomer (Sr.) - 17:13.67 [(1) 5:32, (2) 5:58, (3) 5:44] CT-17:53 PCB by 36 seconds

27 James Westbrooks III (Jr.) - 17:13.67 [(1) 5:28, (2) 6:03, (3) 5:43] CT-17:53

34 Graham Fenn (Jr.) - 17:25.89 [(1) 5:28, (2) 6:03, (3) 5:55] CT-18:05 PR by 1 second

38 Tarik Haris Jr. (Jr.) - 17:34.64 [(1) 5:32, (2) 5:59, (3) 6:04] CT-18:15 Virtual PR by 12 seconds

72 Michael Metz (Sr.) - 18:21.26 [(1) 5:40, (2) 6:21, (3) 6:20] CT-19:02

It's not every day you see two athletes tie down to the hundredth of a second, particularly when there's a camera at the finish line. That's just what happened, though, when James chased Christopher down on the final straightaway and pulled out the tie.

Jayden and Christopher both took a solid chunk of time off their 2021 times on this course. The first mile is always very fast on this course; both lost some time in their second mile but came back with strong third miles.

This was the first time running this course in a DeMatha uniform for James, Graham, and Tarik, but they all ran very well. Graham took a second off his time at the WCAC Championship last October and Tarik's converted time would have given him a new 5k PR.

Michael was understandably disappointed after his race, but we had a good talk about putting today into perspective. I know he'll come back strong next week.

Team Results

1. Centennial 53 points

2. Howard 102 points

3. Liberty 125 points

4. DeMatha 131 points

5. River Hill 209 points

6. The Heights 227 points

7. Mount Hebron 244 points

8. Urbana 281 points

9. Marriotts Ridge 289 points (6th place: 86 points)

10. Wilde Lake 289 points (6th place: 134 points)

...

23. Chapelgate Christian 677 points

While the field as a whole was not much more competitive this year than last year, the competition within the top spots was definitely elevated from last year. In 2021, we took third place in this meet on a 6th man tiebreaker, beating Mount Hebron with each of us scoring 167 points from our first five runners. Today, four teams were below that score including us.

We were a little bit shorthanded today with both Sayid and Ian out. Adding Sayid, and conservatively giving him his same time from last year of 17:12.3, we would have taken 10 points off our score and added two points each to Liberty's and Howard's. It wouldn't have been enough to move us into position for a team award since they only gave them to the Top 2 this year, but we would have repeated as third place finishers in the meet.

Fresh/Soph

Here are the results for our Frosh athletes (253 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:

16 Daden Grogan (So.) - 18:40.91 [(1) 5:43, (2) 6:27, (3) 6:31] CT-19:23

17 Jalen Neptune (So.) - 18:46.58 [(1) 5:48, (2) 6:28, (3) 6:31] CT-19:29 PR & PCB by 49 seconds

36 Roman Zentek (Fr.) - 19:47.47 [(1) 6:07, (2) 6:58, (3) 6:42] CT-20:32 Virtual PR by 1 minute 22 seconds

53 William Jackson (So.) - 20:16.74 [(1) 6:26, (2) 6:58, (3) 6:53] CT-21:03 PCB by 53 seconds

61 Hayden Walsh (So.) - 20:26.64 [(1) 6:05, (2) 6:58, (3) 7:24] CT-21:13

98 Nicholas Berry (Fr.) - 21:28.28 [(1) 6:36, (2) 7:12, (3) 7:40] CT-22:16 Virtual PR by 1 minute 1 second

102 Xavier Raymond (Fr.) - 21:34.96 [(1) 6:24, (2) 7:36, (3) 7:35] CT-22:24 Virtual PR by 41 seconds

127 Brandon Smoot (So.) - 22:22.65 [(1) 7:14, (2) 7:47, (3) 7:22] CT-23:14 Virtual PR by 1 minute 1 second

148 William Herman (Fr.) - 22:52.73 [(1) 7:44, (2) 8:02, (3) 7:07] CT-23:45 Virtual PR by 29 seconds

159 Lazarus McCarthy (Fr.) - 23:11.12 [(1) 7:11, (2) 7:54, (3) 8:06] CT-24:03 Virtual PR by 1 minute 2 seconds

165 Jesse Holland III (Fr.) - 23:17.94 [(1) 7:13, (2) 8:14, (3) 7:51] CT-24:11

185 Cameron Lamb (Fr.) - 24:18.72 [(1) 7:41, (2) 7:58, (3) 8:40] CT-25:14

216 Brendan Dougherty (So.) - 25:48.56 [(1) 7:50, (2) 8:55, (3) 9:04] CT-26:47 PCB by 1 minute 37 seconds Virtual SB by 48 seconds

We had some great showing from our underclassmen today. Daden and Jalen led the way nicely with a pair of sub-19 runs. Roman broke 20 minutes and was less than 15 seconds off of the times Jalen and Hayden ran last year as freshmen on this course.

William and Hayden are still working their back into cross country shape. This summer was a busy one for them with work. William did, however, run significantly faster today than he did on this course last year.

Several of our first-year runners set virtual PRs. These are the estimated times they would have run today if the course had been a full 5k. Cameron's converted time was about a 24-second improvement over last week but he's still working back toward his time at the parkrun to start the season.

Congrats, also, to Brendan. He's not quite where he was to end last season, but his performance today suggests he'll get back to that in no time. He crushed his time on this course last year and his converted time knocked 48 seconds off his previous best 5k time of 2022.

Team Results

1. Centennial 80 points

2. Howard 82 points

3. River Hill 162 points

4. DeMatha 172 points

5. Clarksburg 174 points

6. The Heights 179 points

7. Marriotts Ridge 197 points (6th place: 73 points)

8. Urbana 197 points (6th place: 95 points)

9. Wilde Lake 222 points

10. Liberty 237 points

...

24. Edmund Burke 725 points

It was a tight race at the top for the team victory between Centennial and Howard, but we were locked into a tough four-team race of our own for third place. River Hill got the edge but we held off Clarksburg and our WCAC rival The Height, who had a perfect team score of 15 points in the JV race of last October's conference championship, for fourth place.

Last year we finished in 11th place out of 20 teams with 282 points. We've got a lot of young talent on our team. Well done, gentlemen!

Open

Here are the results for our Junior/Senior athletes and those who had not broken 30 minutes in the 5k yet (114 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:

20 Joshua Gresham (Jr.) - 20:00.32 [(1) 6:13, (2) 6:52, (3) 6:55] CT-20:45 Virtual PR by 3 minutes 12 seconds

64 Maximo Legaspi (Sr.) - 22:54.55 [(1) 7:09, (2) 7:50, (3) 7:56] CT-23:47 PR by 1 minute PCB by 5 minutes 21 seconds Virtual PR by 49 seconds

67 Andrew Righi (Jr.) - 23:23.94 [(1) 7:45, (2) 8:07, (3) 7:32] CT-24:17 Virtual PR by 3 seconds

79 Peter Brown (Jr.) - 24:21.86 [(1) 7:31, (2) 8:28, (3) 8:23] CT-25:17 PCB by 1 minute 45 seconds Virtual SB by 29 seconds

81 Yaphet Negussie (Sr.) - 24:25.92 [(1) 8:12, (2) 8:19, (3) 7:55] CT-25:21 Virtual SB by 2 seconds

96 Daman Decker (Sr.) - 27:12.19 [(1) 8:21, (2) 9:32, (3) 9:19] CT-28:14 Virtual PR by 1 minute 58 seconds

98 Joseph LeGloahec (Fr.) - 27:27.28 [(1) 8:06, (2) 9:48, (3) 9:33] CT-28:29

104 Anthony Bardonille (Jr.) - 29:31.92 [(1) 8:53, (2) 10:33, (3) 10:06] CT-30:39 PCB by 1 minute 35 seconds

108 Amari Wright (So.) - 31:02.66 [(1) 8:13, (2) 10:45, (3) 12:05] CT-32:13

110 Akintunde Shoetan (So.) - 32:48.60 [(1) 9:06, (2) 12:00, (3) 11:43] CT-34:03 Virtual PR by 2 minutes 52 seconds

114 Devin Lewis (So.) - 34:40.62 [(1) 9:48, (2) 13:01, (3) 11:52] CT-36:00

Way to go, everyone! We had so many noteworthy performances in this race today. Starting at the top with Joshua, he dropped a lot of time from last week when he really struggled to keep any sort of a rhythm through the second and third miles. He went out faster this week than he did last week but he kept his mechanics, and didn't slow down any more in the third mile than he did in the second.

Something got into Maximo today; he had a terrific race. He beat his previous 3-mile PR which he set at our WCAC Championship last fall, he demolished his time on this course from last September, and his converted time makes this, at least virtually, the first time he's run a faster 5k than he did at WCAC Championships of his freshman year. I know he's been working really hard to get back to his pre-pandemic performances and today he knocked it out of the park.

Andrew wasn't able to run in this meet last fall so he didn't have an opportunity for a personal course best, but his converted time was more than a minute faster than the 5k he ran at the parkrun while we were at last year's Eagle Invitational, so he is well ahead of where he was at this time last year when he was working his way back from an upper body injury.

Peter crushed his time on this course from last year and ran a virtual season best, and Yaphet, who really had to grind just to finish last week, bounced right back to his parkrun time from a couple of weeks ago and looked really good on the course today.

Daman seemed not to want to deal with that 30-minute mark today as he showed a big improvement over last week's time, and Joe LeGloahec made his DeMatha cross country debut with a really solid performance. I'm looking forward to seeing both of them improve as they get more familiar with the distance.

Anthony did a great job of staying within himself today. He didn't go out too hard and while his second mile was a good bit slower, he was able to find a little extra juice to finish the race out strong. His virtual 5k time was a little over 30 minutes, but with a sub-30 already under his belt in his career and a gap of only 39 seconds to that threshold, I'm going to give it to him. Besides, I've seen his work ethic and I know his personality; if I give it to him I know it'll only serve to motivate him even more. He likes to earn everything he's given.

Tunde still has a little work to do to get to that 30-minute mark, but today was a huge step closer to it. Last week he gutted out a tough course at Georgetown Prep and finished in just under 37 minutes. He ran almost 3 minutes faster if today's course had been extended by an extra tenth of a mile. That's a huge improvement and when you take that much time off, you know there's plenty more room for improvement. He'll be under 30 minutes before we know it.

Amari and Devin both completed their first race of the season. Amari went out a little too fast and wasn't able to maintain that pace through the second and third miles, fading significantly over both, but he's still learning how to run the cross country distance. If he can rope in that first mile and run closer to 8:30 or 8:40, it'll make a huge difference and I think it'll be enough to get him under the 30-minute mark in the 5k.

Devin did a fantastic job today. Last week he came through the 2-mile mark at Woodward Relays in 26:30. His 3-mile converted time from that would have been 40:43, and today he ran more than 6 minutes faster than that! I don't expect that kind of improvement every week, but it shows he is learning how to run at a steady pace, something he didn't know how to do at all when he first joined us a few weeks ago. It also shows that when he does have to slow to a walk, he's walking with purpose, still making steady progress toward the finish line. I see no reason why 30 minutes isn't attainable for Devin this season if he continues to put in the work as he's been doing.

Team Results

1. Howard 44 points

2. The Heights 70 points

3. River Hill 78 points

4. Urbana 87 points

5. Centennial 103 points

6. Marriotts Ridge 147 points

7. Mount Hebron 184 points

8. DeMatha 211 points

9. Wheaton 231 points

10. Clarksburg 263 points

11. Glenelg Country 305 points

Last year, the open race was much smaller with only 80 athletes entered and seven complete teams. We finished 7th in that race, so even though our place was lower and our point total higher this year, we outperformance ourselves from a year ago in the open race.

Final Thoughts

There's so much to be pleased about with today's meet. Our athletes should be very proud of their performances, I know us coaches are.

Because the 3-mile is a much less common distance for us to race, I only keep the Top 50 times since 2000 in my DeMatha database. For reference, I only have five recorded 3-mile results from prior to 2000, the fastest being Jeff Stauder and Tom Littlefield tying at 16:28 in the 1990 WMAC Championship and the slowest being Andy Rogers 16:37 in that same race.

Here are the athletes who today entered DeMatha's Top 50 in the 3-mile run, not including those pre-2000 results:

• #4 Jayden Keels (also owns the #3 and #10 3-mile times)

• T-#17 Christopher Toomer (also owns the #6 and #29 3-mile times)

• T-#17 James Westbrooks III

• #21 Graham Fenn (also owns the #23 3-mile time)

• #24 Tarik Harris Jr.

• #39 Michael Metz (also owns the #16 and #35 3-mile times)

It's worth noting, too, that Daden Grogan, running in the fresh/soph race, was less than 2 seconds away from entering our Top 50 3-mile times.

Next Saturday we get to have a little bit of fun as we run in the evening and do something a little bit different. I'll be sharing details with the team about the Braddock Relays before the weekend is out, so keep an eye out for that. It should be a really fun atmosphere.

Take advantage of the rest of the weekend to recover; ice if you need it, hydrate and get some good food in your systems. We continue our journey on Monday.

"Fast running isn't forced. You have to relax and let the run come out of you." - Desiree Linden