2022 WCAC Championship

When he arrived at Kenilworth Park this morning, shortly after we had set up our team area and our athletes had left on their course walk, the athletes were not the first Stags Coach Anthony saw. There was a deer with antlers near the park entrance, and it must have been an omen for what was to come.


After returning to campus, I had to set up our broadcast equipment in the original gym to prepare to record tomorrow's Hall of Fame speeches. But now as I sit here writing this, it's still surreal. DeMatha Catholic High School is the 2022 WCAC cross country champion!


Many roads have led to this, each of them long and winding.


There's the 16-year road since DeMatha's last league title in the sport, the longest drought since our 1988 WMAC title. I don't plan for us to suffer another drought that long and I know our returning athletes would like to be the first in DeMatha's history to earn multiple cross country titles.


There's the 7-season road for me since I took over as the program's head coach in the fall of 2016. I was talking with my dad today; he took over the program after I graduated and handed it off to me, and we realized that I've now been the head coach for longer than he was. In my first year, Ian's older brother Thomas was a freshman, Maximo's older brother Manuel was a sophomore running his first season of high school cross country, and Michael's older brother Matthew was a junior. That team also featured Ashby Ervin as a sophomore and Caleb Ghatt as a freshman, both of whom have last names you may recognize because their younger siblings are a junior and a senior, respectively, this year.


There's the 3-season road since COVID took away a traditional fall season in 2020. There's no telling where we would have stacked up against the rest of the WCAC if we and other teams had been unaffected by the pandemic, but we certainly seemed to be more prepared than any other team given the circumstances as we won both invitationals we entered that the Academy of the Holy Cross graciously hosted.


And of course, as there always is, there's the long, arduous, grind of a season that we just endured, particularly for those who began their training in late May or early June, but even for those who didn't reach us until mid- or late-August. We've had 58 days since August 12 we held practice or had a meet. That's well over 170 hours and countless miles spent together with one goal in mind.


Today we achieved that goal. I know some individual goals were unfulfilled today. I spent time today talking to a few of you who were disappointed in your races, and I'm sure there were others I didn't get a chance to talk to. But every single one of you should be proud of the effort you put in all season and of the effort you put in today. You may have had an off race, but the effort was there and you contributed to a team effort and a memory that will last a lifetime.


As we get 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, as always, in blue, I have noted all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k (3.1 mile). Today's course was a little bit slower than I expected it to be, but my estimates had been based on the DCXC course which is actually a little bit short of 5k, which was the distance of today's course.


Freshman

Here are the results for our freshmen athletes (49 total finishers 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 1.1 mile splits:


4 Roman Zentek - 19:16 [(1) 5:54, (2) 6:25, (3.1) 6:57]

23 Nicholas Berry - 21:15 [(1) 6:28, (2) 7:04, (3.1) 7:43]

28 Cameron Lamb - 22:23 [(1) 6:45, (2) 7:33, (3.1) 8:05] PR by 28 seconds

29 Jesse Holland III - 22:23 [(1) 6:43, (2) 7:35, (3.1) 8:05]

30 William Herman - 22:28 [(1) 6:56, (2) 7:39, (3.1) 7:53]

31 Xavier Raymond - 22:31 [(1) 6:44, (2) 7:36, (3.1) 8:11]

35 Lazarus McCarthy - 22:50 [(1) 6:57, (2) 7:41, (3.1) 8:12] PR by 13 seconds

39 Daniel Traves - 23:51 [(1) 7:06, (2) 7:49, (3.1) 8:56]

43 Joseph LeGloahec - 25:10 [(1) 7:31, (2) 8:30, (3.1) 9:09] PR by 28 seconds


Cameron ran a great race today. After setting his most recent PR at the Chesapeake Invitational, each race had gotten slower for him but he was ready to race today and did a fantastic job.


Joseph had just PR'd last week at Skip Grant, and he ran another solid PR today after getting out almost 10 seconds faster in his first mile than he did last week.


Lazarus has been sick a missed this whole past week of practice, but the work he'd put in before his illness carried him through today's race. I'm really impressed with his performance.


It's a pretty common phenomenon in running for athletes to enjoy a so-called "sophomore leap." Cross country runners tend to take a pretty big step forward in their sophomore seasons because their bodies have begun to adapt to the training and mileage of the season, plus the season's worth of experience has then more mentally prepared for the 5k. I'm excited to see how all of these guys perform next season with a full summer of training.


Team Results


1. St. John's 31 points

2. The Heights 48 points

3. Gonzaga 95 points

4. DeMatha 104 points

5. Ireton 108 points

6. O'Connell 124 points


I'm really happy with how our freshmen ran today. While Roman and Nicholas didn't set new PRs, Nicholas was within 10 seconds of his and Roman was just 15 seconds off his.


Varsity B

Here are the results for our Varsity B athletes (101 total finishers 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 1.1 mile splits:


1 Daden Grogan (So.) - 18:34 [(1) 5:42, (2) 6:15, (3.1) 6:37]

2 Jalen Neptune (So.) - 18:35 [(1) 5:43, (2) 6:14, (3.1) 6:38]

8 Hayden Walsh (So.) - 18:58 [(1) 5:52, (2) 6:17, (3.1) 6:49]

22 Joshua Gresham (Jr.) - 19:55 [(1) 5:54, (2) 6:35, (3.1) 7:26]

24 William Jackson (So.) - 20:01 [(1) 6:09, (2) 6:43, (3.1) 7:09]

31 Brandon Smoot (So.) - 20:22 [(1) 6:18, (2) 6:52, (3.1) 7:12]

43 Michael Metz (Sr.) - 20:53 [(1) 5:42, (2) 6:38, (3.1) 8:33]

61 Yaphet Negussie (Sr.) - 21:57 [(1) 6:53, (2) 7:12, (3.1) 7:52] PR by 18 seconds

63 Maximo Legaspi (Sr.) - 22:02 [(1) 6:46, (2) 7:25, (3.1) 7:51]

68 Andrew Righi (Jr.) - 22:19 [(1) 6:49, (2) 7:27, (3.1) 8:03]

72 Peter Brown (Jr.) - 22:38 [(1) 6:49, (2) 7:39, (3.1) 8:10]

80 Brendan Dougherty (So.) - 23:19 [(1) 6:54, (2) 7:54, (3.1) 8:31]

100 Daman Decker (Sr.) - 27:20 [(1) 7:45, (2) 8:58, (3.1) 10:37]

102 Anthony Bardonille Jr. (Jr.) - 27:27 [(1) 8:07, (2) 9:20, (3.1) 10:00]

103 Akintunde Shoetan (So.) - 27:31 [(1) 7:43, (2) 9:37, (3.1) 10:11] PR by 2 minutes 2 seconds

106 Carter Leecost (So.) - 33:34 [(1) 8:44, (2) 10:51, (3.1) 13:59]


The last time a Stag finished in the Top 2 in the Varsity B race was in 2007, my sophomore year, when George Brewer was a senior and finished 2nd with a time of 19:25 on a very difficult Lake Fairfax course, five seconds behind the Varsity B winner. Today, we had the top two finishers and they're just sophomores! Congratulations to Daden and Jalen. They ran a masterful race to prevent The Heights from even coming close to the sweep they had in this race a year ago.


Yaphet ran great. I wasn't sure how well until I got a chance to look at the times in context, but I knew when I saw him at the two mile that he looked better than I'd seen him look since Chesapeake. Sure enough, he broke the PR he set on that course by a comfortable margin and broke 22 minutes for the first time!


Tunde had a couple of down weeks at Gunpowder Falls and Skip Grant. He ran his heart out today. His biggest struggle this season has been getting out fast and being unable to maintain through the third mile. I was worried today was going to be a repeat of that trend, but he held on very nicely through that final mile and set a massive PR in the process.


While we only had two new PRs in this group, it should be noted that Hayden was 12 seconds off his, Peter was 6 seconds away from a new PR, and Brandon missed a PR by just 4 seconds.


Daman hasn't raced since Chesapeake. If memory serves, he missed one meet due to a service trip but two others he missed due to an ankle injury. Kudos to him for putting in a solid performance today after missing so much training.


Maximo and Brendan didn't quite hit new PRs today, but they both ran their fastest 5k times since the Chesapeake Invitational, so they should both be really proud of their efforts today.


I know some of our athletes are really disappointed about today. Michael wasn't able to run last week due to illness and while he did get a couple of decent workouts in this week, it was clear today that it isn't completely out of his system. He just couldn't get enough oxygen into his body. I'm so proud of him for gutting it out for his team and being so determined to finish the race, but his body was very angry with him for running today.


Carter had a leg cramp during his race, but he refused to quit. He finished the race and, while it isn't really important, it's worth noting he was not the last finisher in the Varsity B race.


LA was going through it before his race, but he pulled himself together just in time for the gun and wound up having a solid performance. While he was a good ways off the PR he set two weeks ago at Gunpowder Falls, this was the second fastest 5k he's ever run.


Team Results


1. The Heights 27 points

2. DeMatha 55 points

3. Gonzaga 68 points

4. Good Counsel 106 points

5. St. John's 137 points

6. St. Mary's Ryken 174 points

7. Paul VI 182 points

8. Ireton 241 points

9. McNamara 261 points


What a race! This is a far cry from last year when we finished 8th in this event with north of 200 points.


I had to go back to 2011 to find the last time DeMatha finished among the Top 3 teams in the Varsity B race and back to 2008 for our last 2nd place finish. In that 2008 race, Gonzaga not only scored a perfect 15 points but they featured the first ten finishers. Our top finisher was 15th in that race. Today we had three in the Top 10.


No doubt we would have closed that gap significantly if Michael had been healthy and if Joshua had been closer to his Chesapeake time, but I have no complaints about today's performance. Second place is nothing to sneeze at and this group gave the rest of the WCAC a lot to be worried about for at least the next year or two.


Varsity A

Here are the results for our Varsity A athletes (66 total finishers 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 1.1 mile splits:


3 Sayid Shakur (Jr.) - 16:47 [(1) 5:02, (2) 5:27, (3.1) 6:18]

4 Jayden Keels (Sr.) - 16:50 [(1) 5:01, (2) 5:28, (3.1) 6:21]

8 Christopher Toomer Jr. (Sr.) - 17:11 [(1) 5:08, (2) 5:46, (3.1) 6:17]

10 Graham Fenn (Jr.) - 17:16 [(1) 5:08, (2) 5:47, (3.1) 6:21]

19 Ian Parsons (Sr.) - 17:31 [(1) 5:09, (2) 5:57, (3.1) 6:25]

25 Tarik Harris Jr. (Jr.) - 17:58 [(1) 5:17, (2) 5:59, (3.1) 6:42]

James Westbrooks III (Jr.) - DNF [(1) 5:35, (2) 6:37]


Sayid and Jayden each broke 17 minutes for the fourth time in a DeMatha uniform today.


For some additional historical context. Here are our athletes who ran Top 100 times since 2000 in the 5k for DeMatha:

Sayid was just two seconds off his PR today. He ran a great race. He was trailing Jayden by a few stride lengths at the two-mile mark. I lost sight of them as they got to the fair end of the loop and as they came back into view I saw that Sayid had made a move and had opened a little bit of a gap on Jayden.


Jayden did a great job to close that gap down and stay well clear of Anthony Lenzini from O'Connell and Cregan Cahill from The Heights. While neither team wound up threatening our place, if either or both of them had beaten Jayden, it would have affected our score and made that razor-thin margin even tighter.


Add in Graham beating Sean Burke from The Heights to the line by two seconds and Ian just holding off Karil Arnold from St. John's, and if those four places go the other way, we would not have enjoyed the team result we did today.


Team Results


1. DeMatha 44 points

2. Gonzaga 47 points

3. The Heights 77 points

4. St. John's 104 points

5. Good Counsel 131 points

6. Paul VI 181 points

7. O'Connell 192 points

8. Ryken 196 points (6th finisher - 50th)

9. McNamara 196 points (No 6th finisher)

10. Carroll 309 points

Inc. Ireton 2 finishers


Gonzaga had a 19-25 lead after Graham finished thanks to 1-2-7-9 finishes from their first four runners. It came down to Ian and, potentially, Tarik to get the job done for us.


Back in 2006, when we won our last title, the roles were pretty much reversed. We held a 19-26 lead over Gonzaga after each of our first four finishers came through the line. Their fifth man beat our fifth man that day, but by only one spot, allowing us to preserve a 6-point victory.


History did not repeat itself today in that regard. Ian closed the door and didn't even allow it to come down to a sixth-man tiebreaker, though hats off to Tarik for making sure we would've gotten that had it come down to it. Ian beat Gonzaga's fifth man by nine places, flipping the six-point deficit into a three-point victory!


Our top five finishers today averaged a 17:07 finish. Even with spotty records from prior to 2000, I'm comfortable saying that's by far the best in DeMatha's history. Dating back to 2000, only one other team had an average of sub-18 for the first five varsity finishers, and that was a 17:58 averaged by the 2017 squad, though to be fair the converted time for last year's Top 5 on the 3-mile Bull Run course was 17:26.


For reference, when we won our 2006 title, our Top 5 finishers averaged 18:28. Now, Lake Fairfax, which is where I ran all four of my championships and where we held our championship meet until 2017 when we moved to Bull Run Regional Park, is a much slower course than Kenilworth Park, but it is definitely not a minute and eleven seconds slower. If I had to estimate, I'd say it's about 45 seconds slower on average and certainly not more than a minute slower. This is without a doubt the best varsity team in DeMatha cross country history.


Just a little more historical context


I track what I call the All-DeMatha WCAC Varsity and JV teams since 2000. Essentially, it's the Top 7 athletes in DeMatha's history since 2000 by their best WCAC Championship time, then our next 7 make up JV, and I round out a Top 25. Sayid, Jayden, Christopher and Graham would all be on that varsity team, along with myself from 2009, Robert Patterson from 2008, and Anthony Perry from his sophomore season in 2017.


Ian and Tarik are on the JV squad along with Matthew Metz (2017), Michael Metz (converted time from last year's 3-mile course), John Brewer (2010), and Andrew Robey (2015), the first and last of whom were both at today's meet.


Impressively, Daden and Jalen just barely miss out on the Top 25. Daden tied Jack Doiron's 2015 time and Jalen was just a second back. They have two more years so expect to see them both climb much higher on that list over our next two championship meets.


Additionally, Sayid (3rd), Jayden (4th), Christopher (7th), Graham (8th), Ian (14th), and Tarik (22nd) all ran Top 25 WCAC Championship times since 2000 for DeMatha. Sayid was just six seconds behind my junior year time.


Only three athletes in DeMatha history have ever broken 17 minutes at WCACs. Two of them did it today. Jayden also did it last year if we use his converted 5k time of 16:54 from his 3-mile time of 16:17. Of course, I do have to note that if we assume at least a 45-second handicap for Lake Fairfax compared to today's course, one other athlete would have broken 17 minutes in the 5k at WCACs as Robert Patterson ran 17:40 as a junior and 17:20 as a senior in 2007 and 2008, respectively.


Final Thoughts


One thing I really respected about our varsity athletes' strategy was their aggressiveness early in the race. The Washington Post reporter asked me after the race if that was planned, and my response was essentially "not by me." Now that I've had a little extra time to reflect this evening, I'm curious whether it had anything to do with us watching Without Limits on Thursday and whether anybody took to heart Steve Prefontaine's determination to run every race with the sole purpose of seeing who had the most guts. Not to say he didn't care about winning, but that was secondary to him.


Whether that was the inspiration or not, you all ran today to see who had the most guts and it turned out the answer was you. You trusted your training, you trusted your bodies, and you got the job done.


I don't want our JV runners or our freshmen to get lost in all of this. One reason I don't break the team into two completely separate groups for practice like some programs do is because I want our JV runners to see how our varsity runners practice, and to experience same workouts our varsity runners perform, but adjusted to fit their current skill and fitness levels. I also do it this way so our varsity runners know that you all worked every bit as hard as them and deserve to proudly wear the title of WCAC champions every bit as much as they do.


You all ran your hearts out today. Most of you have one more meet to close out this season, and at least a couple of you have expressed your intention to run in New York at the Footlocker Northeast Regional on Thanksgiving weekend, which I'm very excited about. But even as we keep our eyes on what remains of this season, it's exciting to think that all of your hard work has paid off in such a way that we now get to try and do something that's never been done in DeMatha's history: win back-to-back cross country titles.


Well done.


"Everybody on a championship team doesn't get publicity, but everyone can say he's a champion." - Magic Johnson