2022 Maryland XC Invitational

What a great day and a beautiful course! Of all the courses I've coached at but never raced on, this is undoubtedly the one that makes me the most jealous of my athletes.

DeMatha had never run at Shawan Downs before, so I'm glad I got a chance to walk the whole course ahead of time with the athletes. It wasn't flat, but I also wouldn't describe it as hilly. There were long stretches of low-grade climbs and matching stretches of low-grade descents. I've certainly seen faster courses, but this was definitely a good PR course and would have been even faster if it weren't for a few soft spots in the course, particularly in the second and third miles.

Many of our athletes took advantage of the PR potential. But the course also presented some unique challenges in that it was very different than most courses we've run this season. Many of our athletes have become accustomed to short, steep hills in their races as opposed to the long, steady hills we saw today. Some athletes may have taken too much advantage of the ease of the first two miles and gone out a bit too fast, leaving little gas in the tank for the third mile, which was definitely the most difficult of the three in terms of both the terrain and the the uphill trajectory.

This was a highly competitive meet. There were 58 boys varsity teams entered between the Red & White (unseeded) and the Black & Gold (seeded) varsity divisions. 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.

Junior Varsity

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes (653 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:

34 Daden Grogan (So.) - 18:15 [(1) 5:30, (2) 5:51, (3.1) 6:54] PR by 22 seconds

41 Jalen Neptune (So.) - 18:23 [(1) 5:37, (2) 5:55, (3.1) 6:51]

62 Hayden Walsh (So.) - 18:46 [(1) 5:44, (2) 6:05, (3.1) 6:57] PR by 14 seconds

90 Roman Zentek (Fr.) - 19:09 [(1) 5:59, (2) 6:11, (3.1) 6:59] PR by 33 seconds

122 Joshua Gresham (Jr.) - 19:27 [(1) 5:52, (2) 6:18, (3.1) 7:17]

154 William Jackson (So.) - 19:47 [(1) 6:02, (2) 6:25, (3.1) 7:20]

214 Brandon Smoot (So.) - 20:18 [(1) 6:30, (2) 6:30, (3.1) 7:18] PR by 34 seconds

240 Jesse Holland III (Fr.) - 20:34 [(1) 6:29, (2) 6:31, (3.1) 7:34] PR by 1 minute 18 seconds

309 Nicholas Berry (Fr.) - 21:08 [(1) 6:34, (2) 6:45, (3.1) 7:49] PR by 2 seconds

399 Maximo Legaspi (Sr.) - 22:06 [(1) 7:06, (2) 7:10, (3.1) 7:50]

424 Xavier Raymond (Fr.) - 22:19 [(1) 6:29, (2) 7:09, (3.1) 8:41]

439 Andrew Righi (Jr.) - 22:37 [(1) 7:12, (2) 7:20, (3.1) 8:05]

452 Peter Brown (Jr.) - 22:45 [(1) 7:13, (2) 7:20, (3.1) 8:12]

467 Lazarus McCarthy (Fr.) - 23:03 [(1) 7:13, (2) 7:23, (3.1) 8:27] PR by 2 minutes 2 seconds

509 Brendan Dougherty (So.) - 23:35 [(1) 7:19, (2) 7:48, (3.1) 8:28]

510 Daniel Traves (Fr.) - 23:35 [(1) 7:23, (2) 7:45, (3.1) 8:27] PR by 8 seconds

532 Cameron Lamb (Fr.) 23:53 [(1) 7:22, (2) 7:50, (3.1) 8:41]

537 Yaphet Negussie (Sr.) - 24:01 [(1) 7:25, (2) 7:43, (3.1) 8:53]

583 Amari Wright (So.) - 25:42 [(1) 7:20, (2) 8:29, (3.1) 9:53] PR by 1 minute 34 seconds

623 Anthony Bardonille Jr. (Jr.) - 27:51 [(1) 8:10, (2) 9:14, (3.1) 10:27]

633 Carter Leecost (So.) - 29:15 [(1) 8:48, (2) 9:35, (3.1) 10:52]

647 Devin Lewis (So.) - 33:31 [(1) 9:27, (2) 11:25, (3.1) 12:39] PR by 43 seconds

Michael Metz (Sr.) - DNF [(1) 5:23]

I know Michael is disappointed he was unable to finish. I love how aggressive he was off the line; he was more aggressive than I even realized when I saw him at the mile mark, as seen by the picture above from one of the meet photographers. The trainers don't believe his rolled ankle is a serious injury so hopefully he'll be good to go next week.

It wasn't too much of a surprise to see Lazarus drop his PR by so much. The last 5k he ran with the team was at the Woodward Relays, the opening meet of our regular season. He did run in a parkrun a couple of weeks ago, but he was under the weather during that run and in the few days leading up to it. Today was his first chance to showcase the training he has put in and he did a great job.

Perhaps more impressive were the huge PRs for Jesse and Amari, both of whom have run in every race this season. We're getting to the point in the season where it becomes more difficult to break off huge chunks of time because athletes have gained a good understanding of the distance and, in most cases, are running the race properly.

That said, some of our athletes are still ironing out some of the wrinkles in their races. I spoke to Xavier after the race to show him his splits. A few of his teammates passed him after the mile mark and beat him to the finish line, including Max who was more than 30 seconds behind Xavier at the mile mark.

Amari, Anthony, Carter, and Devin all had more than a 2-minute differential between their first and last splits, as well. Generally, you want that gap to be around a minute or so, which may mean they need to back off their first mile by just a bit so they slow down less over the subsequent two miles. It also just means continuing to work on pacing in practice so they can run farther before needing to slow down or walk, which will increase their rate of improvement.

One performance that stuck out to me was Brandon Smoot, who ran exactly the same splits, 6:30, for the first and second miles (Jesse was right behind him at the mile and was with him at the 2-mile mark, as well). More impressively, though, his pace for the final 1.1 miles was 6:38/mile, so he barely slowed down in the final mile. He could probably go out a little bit faster and still maintain his pace through the race, but I'm certainly not complaining after a 34-second PR.

Team Results

1. Calvert Hall 21 points

2. Severna Park 117 points

3. Winston Churchill 125 points

4. South River 136 points

5. St. Albans 160 points

...

12. DeMatha 312 points

...

16. Gonzaga 487 points

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19. Good Counsel 656 points

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35. McNamara 1065 points

...

43. Loch Raven 1369 points

Michael was in great position at the mile mark, tied for second place. Assuming he would have maintained a Top 20 position, and honestly I think he would have been somewhere in the range of 10th based on his recent race performances, we would've knocked off at least 100 points from our score and been either 7th or 8th.

Even without that huge point drop, we easily beat all three WCAC opponents in the JV race, once again showing how deep our team is. Having seven athletes under 20 minutes, including Michael, behind our varsity seven is amazing, and we could have at least two more by the time we reach WCACs with Brandon and Jesse knocking on the door.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (154 total finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the Black & Gold Varsity race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, and last 1.1 mile splits:

28 Jayden Keels (Sr.) - 16:39 [(1) 5:04, (2) 5:19, (3.1) 6:16]

33 Sayid Shakur (Jr.) - 16:45 [(1) 5:06, (2) 5:21, (3.1) 6:18] PR by 20 seconds

37 Christopher Toomer (Sr.) - 16:49 [(1) 5:06, (2) 5:18, (3.1) 6:25] PR by 7 seconds

53 Graham Fenn (Jr.) - 16:58 [(1) 5:09, (2) 5:19, (3.1) 6:30] PR by 12 seconds

68 Ian Parsons (Sr.) - 17:13 [(1) 5:12, (2) 5:34, (3.1) 6:37] PR by 6 seconds

70 James Westbrooks III (Jr.) - 17:15 [(1) 5:15, (2) 5:30, (3.1) 6:30] PR by 31 seconds

87 Tarik Harris Jr. (Jr.) - 17:34 [(1) 5:15, (2) 5:31, (3.1) 6:48]

James hadn't completed a 5k since our pre-season parkrun so it was great to see him get through today's race. He and Ian will be able to work together toward joining our Top 4 guys under that 17-minute mark in the next couple of weeks as we prepare for WCACs.

Christopher told me after the race that he was doing an experiment today. He generally hangs back a bit in the first mile or so, relying on his strength as he maintains his pace better than other athletes down the stretch, finishing stronger than them and often significantly closing the gap on Jayden and Sayid. He employed that strategy and beat Sayid at Chesapeake.

This week, he was right with Sayid and within a couple of seconds of Jayden at the mile mark and was side-by-side with Jayden at about the 1.5-mile mark where I saw them next. He faded more than usual in the final mile. He still ran a fantastic race, but he believes backing off by about 5 seconds or so in the early part of the race will be a happy medium, so I'll be interested to see how that works if he's able to successfully implement that adjustment next week.

All seven of our varsity athletes had Top 100 performances for DeMatha's post-2000 cross country history:

• Jayden's time is the 20th fastest 5k time overall and 11th fastest by a senior since 2000.

• Sayid's time ties him for the 24th fastest 5k time overall and gives him the 8th fastest time by a junior since 2000. He moves up from 9th to 6th on our historical performers list for the 5k. He is the 8th DeMatha cross country runner we have a record of breaking 17 minutes in the 5k.

• Christopher's time ties him for the 28th fastest 5k time overall and gives him the 15th fastest time by a senior since 2000. Sayid passed him on our historical performers list for the 5k, but Christopher passed Joe Graham '13 to remain 7th on that list.

• Graham's time ties him for the 37th fastest 5k time overall and gives him the 14th fastest time by a junior since 2000. He moves up from 11th to 9th on our historical performers list for the 5k. He is the 9th DeMatha cross country runner we have a record of breaking 17 minutes in the 5k.

• Ian's time is the 50th fastest 5k time by a DeMatha athlete since 2000 and makes him the 10th fastest DeMatha cross country runner in this era.

• James' time ties him for the 52nd fastest 5k time by a DeMatha athlete since 2000 and makes him the 12th fastest DeMatha cross country runner in this era.

• Tarik's time ties him for the 75th fastest 5k time by a DeMatha athletes since 2000.

Team Results

1. Calvert Hall 58 points

2. Towson 91 points

3. St. Albans 113 points

4. Severna Park 146 points

5. Winston Churchill 192 points

6. Howard 207 points

7. DeMatha 214 points

8. Gonzaga 221 points

9. Dulaney 318 points

10. Walt Whitman 326 points

...

22. Hereford 589 points

For reference, if we had run our varsity team in the Red & White division, we would have obliterated the competition. Our top five would have scored 45 points. Gilman won the Red & White division with 156 points, and their score would have increased by double digits if our athletes had been included in the scoring.

I'm much more excited about our 7th place finish in the Black & Gold than I would have been with a first place in the Red & White. Our guys got to run against perhaps the best field of athletes they'll face all season and they more than held their own. The main purpose of calculating where we would have placed in the other varsity race is to show that we were not just the 7th best team out of the 22 in the Black & Gold race; we were the 7th best team out of the 58 boys teams across both varsity races in this meet.

Final Thoughts

The mile split provided above are the unofficial splits taken by myself at the mile and Coach Hoke at the 2-mile. If anybody is interested in seeing the splits the computers got for you on the course at those two marks as well as at the 3-mile mark, you can find that information at this link.

Great job everyone. Today was a huge success. It certainly feels good to have outperformed all three of our WCAC opponents on both the varsity and JV levels. It feels even better to have gotten back out after an unexpected week off of racing and to have earned so many PRs (and near PRs) on a uniquely challenging course.

Athletes who came very close to new PRs include:

• Anthony Bardonille was about 15 seconds shy of a new PR.

• Peter Brown, who got a little out of control in his sprint trying to beat the clock and fell near the finish, costing himself a few seconds. He was about 13 seconds shy of a new PR.

• William Jackson was only about 4 seconds shy of a new PR.

• Jayden Keels was about 2 seconds shy of a new PR.

• Jalen Neptune was about 12 seconds shy of a new PR.

Next week we are at the Gunpowder Falls Invitational. We ran there last year and, out of 21 athletes who races, nine hit new PRs and another hit a season best. It's another course that presents unique challenges, but we should all remain confident through this week that we can once again improve on our past couple of performances.

We are now just three weeks away from WCACs. This week is the most important week of training for the entire season, because it's the last one that will make a significant impact on your WCAC performance. After this week, our workouts will maintain their intensity but will decrease in quantity (shorter running times, fewer repetitions, etc) as we shift our focus to maintaining what we've built and guarding against injury; it's what we call the "taper" phase of the season.

All that to say, if you want to squeeze as much potential out of yourself as you can, this week is your last opportunity to "cram." Don't overdo it; working significantly harder than your body has been accustomed to will increase your risk of injury. But a small bump in intensity may buy you those last few seconds as you try to hit a new milestone or attempt to out-sprint an opponent in the final stretch of the WCAC Championship race.

"Push yourself again and again. Don't give an inch until the final buzzer." - Larry Bird