2025 Maryland XC Invitational

If you took photos during this week's race, you can upload those photos to our PG Invitational folder in Google Drive using this link.

It has been a long couple of weeks for us, but the bye week came at a good time for things to settle down and for some of our athletes to build in a bit of rest from a grueling schedule of six races in six weeks.

The Shawan Downs course today was in the best condition we've seen since 2022, the first year we joined the field for this event. With only one day of rain in the past two weeks, the course was dry and fast, and our athletes took full advantage.

For our results below, I have marked in blue all athletes who set a new PR (personal record) in the cross country 5k 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. For returning athletes who ran faster today than they did on this course in any of the past three seasons, in silver I have noted all athletes who set a new PCB (personal course best) for the Shawan Downs 5k course.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (325 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, third mile, and last 0.1 mile splits:

131 Lucas Moisiuk (So.) - 17:55.83 [(1) 5:37, (2) 5:46, (3) 6:02, (3.1) 0:31] PR by 40 seconds PCB by 2 minutes 6 seconds
172 Jesse Holland III (Sr.) - 18:23.03 [(1) 5:45, (2) 5:57, (3) 6:14, (3.1) 0:27] SB by 11 seconds PCB by 1 minute 15 seconds
176 Dominic Hilton (So.) - 18:24.85 [(1) 5:53, (2) 5:50, (3) 6:10, (3.1) 0:32] PR by 21 seconds
184 Elijah Hawkins (Jr.) - 18:27.26 [(1) 5:45, (2) 6:03, (3) 6:11, (3.1) 0:28] PR by 19 seconds PCB by 1 minute 54 seconds
204 Andrew Stinson (So.) - 18:44.44 [(1) 5:46, (2) 5:59, (3) 6:26, (3.1) 0:33]
241 Jeremy Juste (Sr.) - 19:03.30 [(1) 6:01, (2) 6:12, (3) 6:20, (3.1) 0:30] PCB by 2 minutes 20 seconds
285 Cameron Lamb (Sr.) - 19:49.08 [(1) 6:23, (2) 6:13, (3) 6:43, (3.1) 0:30] PR by 0.5 seconds PCB by 1 minute 29 seconds

Our varsity guys had a terrific day. Dominic is a first-year member of the team, Andrew missed this meet as a freshman, and everybody else bested their previous best time on this course by a minimum of 75 seconds!

Lucas broke 18 minutes for the first time in his career. He is the 34th DeMatha runner since 2000 to reach the 17s and he's only 13 seconds off the 15th fastest time ever run by a DeMatha sophomore.

Dominic, Elijah, and Andrew have all been dealing with lower body injuries throughout this season. Dominic has had a few separate flair-ups but fortunately has felt pretty good through most of the season. Elijah has been able to train through his injury for the most part, but it's been a more constant issue he's had to manage. Andrew, meanwhile, has really struggled to get any substantial training in for the past few weeks.

Considering all that, the solid PRs for Dominic and Elijah were impressive, as was Andrew coming in less than 10 seconds off his PR from Chesapeake a month ago.

In addition to Andrew coming very close to his PR, our other two athletes who missed a new personal record today also came very close. Jeremy was less than two seconds off his Chesapeake time and Jesse was only about four seconds off the PR he set at our second parkrun last season.

Team Results

1. Calvert Hall 94 points
2. Centennial 113 points
3. Crofton 154 points
4. Westfield 196 points
5. Thomas S Wootton 237 points
6. Severna Park 245 points
7. Langley 271 points
8. St Albans 277 points
9. The Heights 281 points
10. Catonsville 305 points
...
18. Good Counsel 519 points
---
29. DeMatha 801 points
...
39. Severn 1077 points

Congratulations to Calvert Hall. They had more competition this year than last, but they still pulled off the repeat. Centennial's fifth runner actually finished ahead of Calvert Hall's, but CH had the advantage with each of their respective first four finishers, including three finishers before Centennial's first.

If Phillip had been healthy enough to run today, I think he'd be in shape to at least run 16:55. With that conservative estimate putting him around 60th place, very roughly, we would have taken 124 points off our team score and placed 25th. There's still be a gap between us and Good Counsel, but remember that scores are much lower and gaps between team scores are much smaller at the WCAC Championship.

Junior Varsity

Here are the results for our junior varsity athletes (531 total finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the JV boys race. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, third mile, and last 0.1 mile splits:

131 Don DeRocha Jr. (Sr.) - 19:52.35 [(1) 6:09, (2) 6:40, (3) 6:33, (3.1) 0:30] SB by 32 seconds PCB by 1 minute 26 seconds
135 Nicholas Berry (Sr.) - 19:54.35 [(1) 6:08, (2) 6:31, (3) 6:45, (3.1) 0:30] PR by 1 second PCB by 17 seconds
160 Alexander Soto (So.) - 20:09.05 [(1) 6:19, (2) 6:35, (3) 6:42, (3.1) 0:33] SB by 1 minute 13 seconds PCB by 1 minute 24 seconds
163 William Herman (Sr.) - 20:12.46 [(1) 6:41, (2) 6:37, (3) 6:24, (3.1) 0:30] PR & PCB by 3 seconds
189 Renaud Williams (Jr.) - 20:28.47 [(1) 6:21, (2) 6:44, (3) 6:51, (3.1) 0:32] PCB by 49 seconds
202 Joseph LeGloahec (Sr.) - 20:39.23 [(1) 6:47, (2) 6:34, (3) 6:48, (3.1) 0:30] PR by 27 seconds PCB by 57 seconds
203 Ryan Pickett (Sr.) - 20:39.29 [(1) 6:08, (2) 6:41, (3) 7:16, (3.1) 0:34] PCB by 46 seconds
205 Fareed Rahi (Fr.) - 20:40.25 [(1) 6:48, (2) 6:34, (3) 6:46, (3.1) 0:32]
218 Satchel Drabinski (Fr.) - 20:44.94 [(1) 6:47, (2) 6:35, (3) 6:47, (3.1) 0:36] PR by 12 seconds
311 Xavier Raymond (Sr.) - 21:41.36 [(1) 6:21, (2) 7:05, (3) 7:39, (3.1) 0:36] PCB by 38 seconds
355 Michael Bridges (Fr.) - 22:05.75 [(1) 7:04, (2) 7:03, (3) 7:22, (3.1) 0:37]
390 Dane Kuzner (So.) - 22:40.74 [(1) 7:00, (2) 7:23, (3) 7:43, (3.1) 0:35] PR by 59 seconds
408 Tyson Woods (Sr.) - 23:06.66 [(1) 7:10, (2) 7:24, (3) 7:51, (3.1) 0:42]
413 Nathaniel Garvin Jr. (Fr.) - 23:09.96 [(1) 7:11, (2) 7:28, (3) 7:59, (3.1) 0:32] PR by 1 minute 4 seconds
431 Oluwatoni "Toni" Adefiyiju (Fr.) - 23:30.58 [(1) 7:26, (2) 7:44, (3) 7:45, (3.1) 0:36] PR by 1 minute 15 seconds
437 Ian Andrews (Fr.) - 23:35.50 [(1) 7:27, (2) 7:44, (3) 7:46, (3.1) 0:38]
444 John Tomas Felicio (So.) - 23:42.67 [(1) 7:27, (2) 7:47, (3) 7:55, (3.1) 0:34] PR by 57 seconds
448 Ryan Hickey (Fr.) - 23:54.27 [(1) 7:28, (2) 7:42, (3) 8:00, (3.1) 0:44] PR by 1 minute 7 seconds
457 Stephen Lawrence Jr. (Fr.) - 24:11.29 [(1) 7:31, (2) 7:59, (3) 8:09, (3.1) 0:32] PR by 11 seconds
470 Julian Righi (Jr.) - 24:30.20 [(1) 7:29, (2) 8:02, (3) 8:31, (3.1) 0:28] SB by 1 minute 6 seconds PCB by 1 minute 14 seconds
471 Chase Osby (Jr.) - 24:33.18 [(1) 7:29, (2) 8:01, (3) 8:28, (3.1) 0:35] PR by 3 minutes 1 second
479 Terence Rascher (So.) - 24:46.63 [(1) 7:27, (2) 8:02, (3) 8:42, (3.1) 0:36] PCB by 3 minutes 21 seconds
482 Stavros Rodousakis (So.) - 24:56.20 [(1) 7:55, (2) 8:14, (3) 8:09, (3.1) 0:38] PR by 57 seconds PCB by 5 minutes 27 seconds
485 Luke Anthony Quach (Fr.) - 25:08.06 [(1) 8:06, (2) 8:04, (3) 8:16, (3.1) 0:42] PR by 53 seconds
492 Jaidon Contreras (So.) - 25:30.52 [(1) 7:19, (2) 8:11, (3) 9:29, (3.1) 0:32] PR by 47 seconds PCB by 1 minute 13 seconds
500 Emilio Chicas (So.) - 26:15.92 [(1) 8:12, (2) 8:45, (3) 8:39, (3.1) 0:40] PR by 58 seconds PCB by 2 minutes 6 seconds
507 Dawit Gezae (So.) - 27:00.60 [(1) 7:57, (2) 9:16, (3) 9:13, (3.1) 0:35] PR by 1 minute 46 seconds
519 Sebastian Righi (Fr.) - 28:39.94 [(1) 8:35, (2) 9:19, (3) 9:58, (3.1) 0:48] PR by 48 seconds
521 Oladimeji "Akin" Alade (Fr.) - 29:01.88 [(1) 8:12, (2) 10:02, (3) 10:01, (3.1) 0:47]
523 Kasapo Mwanza (Sr.) - 29:36.79 [(1) 8:29, (2) 10:11, (3) 10:13, (3.1) 0:44] PR by 2 seconds PCB by 1 minute 26 seconds

It took me a while to get through all the PRs, season bests, and personal course bests for this lot. They did such a fantastic job today.

I pointed out in the varsity section that we had a handful of guys who have been running through injuries. We have a few of those in this bunch, too.

Alex has been dealing with shin pain for several weeks now and missed a new PR by just six seconds! Something new seems to pop up for Julian every time he recovers from the previous injury, but he ran great today and was only 0.2 seconds off his PR from the second parkrun last year. It's worth noting they don't measure times at the parkrun to even the tenth of a second, so for all we know Julian may have been fractionally faster today. Emilio has also been dealing with a shin injury and he set a massive new PR, taking more than three minutes off his previous best time this fall.

I am really happy for Don and Nick, dipping back under 20 minutes for the first time since last fall. Seeing Will and Joe set new PRs today was one of my highlights. Will lost his entire junior season and Joe lost most of his to different lower body injuries, and I was so grateful last year that they both showed up to nearly every practice and meet to help out.

Speaking of new PRs, I see you Chase! I've seen plenty of athletes take three minutes off their previous PR, and like most of them Chase is in his first year running cross country. But nearly every previous instance occurred within the first three races of the season. I probably should have seen something like this coming, considering Chase's previous PR came just two weeks ago on quite possibly the most challenging course we'll have run on all season.

And how about our freshmen today! We had 11 of them running in this JV race, with 7 setting new PRs by an average margin of 47 seconds!

This is not the first time Kasapo has broken 30 minutes in the 5k, but it is his first time doing so in the regular season. His other sub-30 race was in the private school state championship meet at Bullis two years ago. I'm so happy for him today, and I'm excited that I'll get to watch him race at the WCAC Championship in two weeks.

And last but not least, I want to point out our second-year runners. Most are sophomores but some are juniors. Including those in the varsity race, all eight of them who ran in this meet last year set new personal course bests by more than minute! Stav and Terence led the way by taking more than 5 and 3 minutes off their 2024 MDXC times, respectively.

Team Results

1. Calvert Hall 17 points
2. Centennial 112 points
3. The Heights 137 points
4. Thomas S Wootton 157 points
5. Severna Park 158 points
...
9. Bishop McNamara 208 points
...
18. DeMatha 555 points
...
24. Good Counsel 781 points
...
30. North Harford 992 points

Calvert Hall not only pulled off the double-repeat, but they equalled their near-perfect score from the JV race a season ago. Most impressive.

Final Thoughts

Four weeks ago at the Chesapeake Invitational, we set a record with 36 athletes finishing their races in a single meet. Today we reset that record with 37! Of them, 22 set new personal records today and another 4 reset their season bests.

Looking through the remaining 11 athletes, four were within 10 seconds of setting a new PR and three others were within 30 seconds.

All-in-all, I'd say today was a very successful meet for us.

The changes our roster underwent these past two weeks may impact how our team performs head-to-head against other programs for the remainder of this season. But one thing I love about cross country is that, because we don't play defense, these changes make no difference at all in our expectations for the season.

Our guys ran hard today and they were rewarded with results they can all be proud of. Twenty-two PRs is incredible, and many of those were by more than a minute!

We can't control how strong or weak our competition is, but we can always make ourselves better, and that's what every day of practice and every race is about doing.

Now we turn to our championship tune-up race next week at the parkrun. Five of our athletes' current PRs are from our second running of the parkrun in previous seasons. This will be another opportunity to run one more PR and build some confidence heading into the WCAC Championship, wherever it winds up being held.

I expect to get more information about the championship meet during Tuesday evening's WCAC coaches meeting. Remember that we do not have school Monday so athletes will have a workout to complete on their own. The schedule and workout pages have already been updated on the website, though I will send those links out via Remind Sunday morning. Athletes should keep an eye on their email for target training paces, which will update for many of them after today's outstanding performances.