2022 Skip Grant Invitational

Today's course was a great challenge for us heading into the WCAC Championship next Saturday. It certainly throws some hills at you, and many athletes are not prepared for that. One of the downsides to use running so many flat-ish courses this year is that the hills at the Farm Park can be intimidating on the course walk.

With that being said, it absolutely can be a PR course. Nine of our 21 participating athletes ran a PR on this course last year and another two set new season bests. My senior year, when I ran this course for the MD-DC Private School Championship, I set a season best of 15:32, which was a course record at the time (it has since been beaten twice) and still stands as DeMatha's second fastest 5k time.

My reaction to today's races are best saved for the final thoughts section of this writeup, so let's jump into today's results.

As always, in blue, I have noted all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k (3.1 mile). Since this is the second time many of our athletes have run on this course, it was also an opportunity for a new PCB (personal course best) for the Agricultural History Fam Park 5k course, which I will indicate in silver where applicable.

Junior Varsity

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes (182 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 splits, closing 2.1-mile splits, and the average pace for their closing 2.1 miles (we did not get 2-mile splits today):

2 Jalen Neptune (So.) - 18:27.1 [(1) 5:36, (3.1) 12:51 - 6:07 pace]

8 Roman Zentek (Fr.) - 19:01.0 [(1) 5:42, (3.1) 13:19 - 6:20 pace] PR by 4 seconds

63 Brandon Smoot (So.) - 21:17.3 [(1) 6:25, (3.1) 14:52 - 7:05 pace]

65 Jesse Holland III (Fr.) - 21:21.6 [(1) 6:28, (3.1) 14:54 - 7:06 pace]

66 William Herman (Fr.) - 21:26.1 [(1) 6:34, (3.1) 15:52 - 7:05 pace] PR by 32 seconds

96 Andrew Righi (Jr.) - 22:24.8 [(1) 6:51, (3.1) 15:34 -7:25 pace] PCB by 1 minute 55 seconds

97 Yaphet Negussie (Sr.) - 22:25.5 [(1) 7:00, (3.1) 15:26 - 7:21 pace]

110 Xavier Raymond (Fr.) - 23:08.8 [(1) 6:15, (3.1) 16:54 - 8:03 pace]

120 Nicholas Berry (Fr.) - 23:28.0 [(1) 6:25, (3.1) 17:03 - 8:07 pace]

122 Lazarus McCarthy (Fr.) - 23:31.8 [(1) 6:49, (3.1) 16:43 - 7:58 pace]

129 Cameron Lamb (Fr.) - 24:15.1 [(1) 7:14, (3.1) 17:01 - 8:06 pace]

130 Brendan Dougherty (So.) - 24:24.5 [(1) 7:17, (3.1) 17:08 - 8:09 pace] PCB by 15 seconds

131 Peter Brown (Jr.) - 24:27.9 [(1) 6:54, (3.1) 17:34 - 8:22 pace]

147 Joseph LeGloahec (Fr.) - 25:37.8 [(1) 7:38, (3.1) 18:00 - 8:34 pace] PR by 1.5 seconds

157 Maximo Legaspi (Sr.) - 26:45.6 [(1) 6:37, (3.1) 20:09 - 9:36 pace]

169 Carter Leecost (So.) - 27:56.1 [(1) 8:17, (3.1) 19:39 - 9:21 pace]

173 Akintunde Shoetan (So.) - 30:35.7 [(1) 8:13, (3.1) 22:23 - 10:40 pace]

180 Devin Lewis (So.) - 35:21.0 [(1) 9:28, (3.1) 25:53 - 12:19 pace]

Hayden Walsh (So.) - DNF [(1) 5:42]

In addition to the three athletes we had PR in today's JV race, Jalen was just 16 seconds off his PR and Yaphet was 11 seconds away from his.

We've had some sort of a respiratory virus (not COVID, based on tests) spreading through the team this week. That seemed to impact quite a few of our athletes in this and the varsity race. Hayden was getting over something but he was having trouble breathing and his legs locked up. Max missed a few days this week with his own cold and that could have played into the cramping that slowed him down significantly. Jesse ran through a cold and did a really nice job of pushing through it and turning in a really solid performance.

I know several of our guys ran much slower than they've run in the past few weeks, but I hope each of them can take something positive away from today and build on it to turn in their best race of the year next week, when it really counts.

Team Results

1. St. Albans 25 points

2. The Heights 63 points

3. Georgetown Day 66 points

4. Gonzaga 121 points

5. DeMatha 124 points

...

11. Maret 310 points

Team-wise, we did remarkably well considering the athletes we were missing. Daden would have almost certainly been in the Top 5 with Jalen and Hayden and Roman might have been 9-10 in some order. William Jackson and Joshua Gresham were both out today and likely would have placed in a position where we could've been competing with The Heights and Georgetown Day for that #2 spot behind St. Albans.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (91 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 splits, closing 2.1-mile splits, and the average pace for their closing 2.1 miles (we did not get 2-mile splits today):

5 Sayid Shakur (Jr.) - 16:53.8 [(1) 5:03, (3.1) 11:51 - 5:38 pace] PCB by 43 seconds

10 Jayden Keels (Sr.) - 17:12.6 [(1) 5:00, (3.1) 12:13 - 5:49 pace] PCB by 8 seconds

12 Christopher Toomer (Sr.) - 17:25.0 [(1) 5:10, (3.1) 12:15 - 5:50 pace] PCB by 14 seconds

18 Graham Fenn (Jr.) - 17:40.0 [(1) 5:10, (3.1) 12:30 - 5:57 pace] PCB by 25 seconds

25 Ian Parsons (Sr.) - 17:54.1 [(1) 5:18, (3.1) 12:36 - 6:00 pace] PCB by 2 seconds

28 James Westbrooks III (Jr.) - 18:02.8 [(1) 5:13, (3.1) 12:50 - 6:07 pace]

Tarik Harris Jr. (Jr.) - DNF [(1) 5:15]

Sayid was just 9 seconds off his PR. Outside of his performance, though, this was definitely a rough week for our varsity team. Everyone one of them who ran in this meet last year set a new course best, but we were far from our best.

Some of that had to do with the respiratory illness many of us have been fighting through. Some of it may be related to some overtraining. The good news is that the second week of our taper is where we're going to see the most benefit from it, so a good, smart week of training this week should help to set some of that right.

Thankfully, it looks like the ankle injury that prevented TJ from finishing is a minor one and shouldn't linger more than two or three days. We'll see how it's feeling Monday, get him in to see the trainers if necessary, and go from there.

Here is where our varsity finishers rank on our program leaderboard:

• Sayid - #34 for DeMatha since 2000, #13 among DeMatha juniors since 2000

• Jayden - #53 for DeMatha since 2000

• Christopher - #71 for DeMatha since 2000

• Graham - #96 for DeMatha since 2000

FYI, the very first race I ran as a freshman, a 17:45 at the Peter Geraghty Invitational at Mt. St. Mary's, had remained on the Top 100 leaderboard until today.

Team Results

1. St. Albans 32 points

2. DeMatha 70 points

3. Gonzaga 84 points

4. Georgetown Day 109 points

5. The Heights 130 points

12. Covenant Life 334 points

Considering this was an off day for us, we should feel very encouraged that we still managed to hold off Gonzaga and place second. Well done, gentlemen!

Final Thoughts

This week, we need to be fully focused on the task at hand. We have three titles to try and win. Our freshman team is looking for a title, our JV athletes have a title to go for, and our varsity runners are trying to make our first addition to the cross country banner since 2006. St. John's is going to be ready and Gonzaga isn't going to be turned away just because we've raced and beaten them in two of our last three invitationals.

Yaphet pointed out today the irony that I told everyone after Tuesday's weight room session that we need to do all the little things to take care of our bodies and try to avoid getting sick, then we immediately all seemed to get sick. As I said many times today, better this week than next week. Hopefully whatever this was has run its course and we'll be at fully strength next Saturday.

Push each other and support each other this week. We all need to be at our best physically, mentally, and emotionally. Regardless of what St. John's or Gonzaga does next week, our goal is to run the best race of our lives. If we do that, we can't be disappointed in the result we earn.

"Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it." - Steve Prefontaine