2026 Seahawk Invite

Thank you to all of the parents (and athletes) who have already uploaded photos to our Google Drive folder. If you took photos but haven't uploaded them yet, please use this link to do so.

Intro

I mentioned on Friday that it had been a few years since we attended the Seahawk Invite, but as I looked back at our records I realized I undersold that just a bit. It doesn't feel like it's been this long, but this was our first return to South River High School since 2018. It is just DeMatha's fourth visit to the South River course in program history.

Historically a 3-mile course, they updated the route this year to make it a full 5k, which is one reason it earned heavy consideration and ultimately ended up on our schedule this fall.

While conditions were much cooler than we've had throughout this week, it was by no means cool this morning. Heat played a factor in some of our performances.

With a healthy mix of grass and trail running, this meet makes for a solid introduction to real cross country racing for our new athletes and a good opportunity to run an early season PR for our returners who are nearly halfway through the third block of our training cycle.

Let's jump right into our results. As always, in blue, I'll note any new PRs (personal records) in the cross country 5k (3.1 mile) at the meet. Additionally, in red, I'll acknowledge any athletes who set a new SB (season best), but not PR, in the cross country 5k. Since nobody on the team has raced this course before, this week I am also including in silver any improvements on athletes' P5 (projected 5k) times from last week's 2500m times at Braddock Relays.

Varsity

Here are the results for our varsity athletes (206 total finishers 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, third mile, and last 0.1 mile splits:

18 Arvin Mirchandani (Sr) - 17:31.4 [(1) 5:15, (2) 5:50, (3) 5:53, (3.1) 0:33]
35 Kendall Giles (Sr) - 18:07.3 [(1) 5:31, (2) 6:07, (3) 6:00, (3.1) 0:29]
43 Elijah Hawkins (Sr) - 18:17.8 [(1) 5:29, (2) 6:14, (3) 6:07, (3.1) 0:28]
78 Lucas Moisiuk (Jr) - 19:10.9 [(1) 5:30, (2) 6:29, (3) 6:36, (3.1) 0:36]
89 Dominic Hilton (Jr) - 19:25.1 [(1) 5:55, (2) 6:32, (3) 6:24, (3.1) 0:34] Beat Braddock P5 by 3 seconds

Congratulations to Arvin for earning the team's first award of the season. The Top 25 finishers in the varsity race earned medals at the awards ceremony and Arvin finished safely within that group.

This was the first 5k of the season for most of our varsity athletes, but Kendall and Elijah really stood out in this race.

Kendall has needed some time getting used to the longer racing distance, but he put things together nicely for his first regular season 5k. I mentioned in last week's write-up that his projected 5k time from his relay split was 18:00, which represented a 50-second improvement from his summer parkrun attempt in mid-July. Today's performance fell right in line with last week's.

While Elijah was a little further off his P5 time from the Braddock Relays, he was only about 2 seconds off his PR from last fall, so he's in a good spot to begin this season.

It's apparent that we have a lot of work to do on that second mile, but I was impressed with the negative splits Kendall, Elijah, and Dominic pulled on their third miles.

Team Results

1. Severna Park 123 points
2. Crofton 128 points
3. Leonardtown 147 points
4. Broadneck 153 points
5. Eleanor Roosevelt 201 points
6. North County 239 points
7. South River 250 points
8. DeMatha 252 points
9. Great Mills 259 points
10. Catonsville 285 points
...
15. St. Mary's Ryken 384 points
...
27. Patuxent 812 points

All in all, we can feel pretty good about where we finished today as a team. I often look at Eleanor Roosevelt as a local team with whom we should usually be on similar footing. We were a little off their pace today, but we're within striking distance.

A Top 10 finish in a packed field with quite a bit of talent is something we can feel good about early in the season, but I know we have a lot more in us and we're going to need to find it if we are going to reach our goals for the postseason.

Junior Varsity

Here are the results for our athletes in the junior varsity race (196 total finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place in the event. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, third mile, and last 0.1 mile splits:

7 Renaud Williams (Sr) - 19:30.8 [(1) 5:51, (2) 6:31, (3) 6:30 (3.1) 0:39] PR by 19 seconds Beat Braddock P5 by 15 seconds
26 Fareed Rahi (So) - 20:32.0 [(1) 6:22, (2) 6:37, (3) 6:59, (3.1) 0:34] SB by 25 seconds
29 Blake Inzeo (So) - 20:38.8 [(1) 5:59, (2) 6:38, (3) 7:27, (3.1) 0:35] PR by 58 seconds
40 Alexander Soto (Jr) - 21:09.5 [(1) 6:24, (2) 7:06, (3) 7:05, (3.1) 0:35]
61 Michael Bridges (So) - 22:11.3 [(1) 6:50, (2) 7:21, (3) 7:27, (3.1) 0:33] SB by 41 seconds Beat Braddock P5 by 11 seconds
62 Dominic Hislop (So) - 22:12.2 [(1) 6:44, (2) 7:19, (3) 7:33, (3.1) 0:36] PR by 1 minute 44 seconds
86 Zahir Accilien (So) - 23:15.5 [(1) 7:05, (2) 7:14, (3) 8:25, (3.1) 0:32]
97 Dane Kuzner (Jr) - 23:41.9 [(1) 7:07, (2) 7:58, (3) 7:57, (3.1) 0:40] SB by 23 seconds
110 Stephen Lawrence Jr. (So) - 24:11.2 [(1) 7:31, (2) 8:07, (3) 8:00, (3.1) 0:33] SB by 2 minutes 3 seconds Beat Braddock P5 by 34 seconds
121 Nathaniel Garvin Jr. (So) - 24:34.5 [(1) 7:31, (2) 8:07, (3) 8:20, (3.1) 0:37] SB by 1 minute 28 seconds
133 Stavros Rodousakis (Jr) - 25:00.3 [(1) 7:26, (2) 8:26, (3) 8:32, (3.1) 0:36] SB by 12 seconds
134 Logan Von Spiegelfeld (Jr) - 25:04.3 [(1) 7:27, (2) 8:30, (3) 8:28, (3.1) 0:39]

Our JV runners had another strong showing today after taking a big step forward last week with several new season bests and a few PRs, to boot.

In addition to those denoted above, Stav finished just 8 seconds off his PR from last fall and Zahir was 12 seconds behind the PR he set in his debut at the parkrun two weeks ago.

Renaud set the tone at the start and put himself in excellent position with that sub-6:00 opening mile. While he lost a good bit of time in the second mile, largely due to the terrain in the woods, he maintained that tempo through the third mile to hold a Top 10 spot at the finish for a medal in the race.

Stephen borrowed a page from the varsity group's book with a really strong third mile today. He wasn't the only athlete in this race to negative split the third mile, but a 7-second drop is significant.

Finally, I want to tip my cap to Logan in the first 5k of his high school career. He missed some practice time this week due to illness and it was pretty clear to me while watching him race today that he was far from 100%. I respect the determination he showed to finish and the guts it took to even start the race. We had a handful of athletes out due to illness this week, and I would have supported Logan's decision if he'd chosen not to race the same way I support those other athletes. It took a lot of guts just to lock on to Stav, especially after losing a few seconds to him in that middle third of the race.

Team Results

1. Crofton 44 points
2. Severna Park 51 points
3. South River 86 points
4. Leonardtown 89 points
5. Eleanor Roosevelt 133 points
6. DeMatha 146 points
...
13. St. Mary's Ryken 380 points
...
18. Harford Tech 517 points

Our guys represented very well in the JV race today. While there were fewer full teams in this race than the varsity, the total number of athletes was similar and our depth showed with the higher team finish.

Of note, while we were 13 points behind Roosevelt, that's a pretty small gap and Dominic finished ahead of their sixth man, so if we'd been able to pull up into a tie with them, we would have taken fifth on the tiebreaker. That's why even our non-scorers are critical to our team success. Those first two finishers after our fifth man displace opposing athletes and the sixth man breaks any ties.

Open

Here are the results for our athletes in the open race (49 total male finishers in the race). The number in front of each name signifies their overall place among the boys in the event. In brackets are their first mile, second mile, third mile, and last 0.1 mile splits:

1 Kenneth Osuji Jr. (Jr) - 19:23.9 [(1) 5:49, (2) 6:42, (3) 6:18, (3.1) 0:35]
26 John Tomas Felicio (Jr) - 24:26.6 [(1) 6:51, (2) 8:30, (3) 8:26, (3.1) 0:40] SB by 9 seconds
28 Caene Nartey (Fr) - 24:51.9 [(1) 7:12, (2) 8:26, (3) 8:42, (3.1) 0:32] PR by 1 minute 49 seconds Beat Braddock P5 by 16 seconds
36 Ian Andrews (So) - 25:09.4 [(1) 6:50, (2) 8:30, (3) 9:14, (3.1) 0:35] Beat Braddock P5 by 5 seconds
39 Sebastian Righi (So) - 26:55.4 [(1) 8:01, (2) 9:09, (3) 9:04, (3.1) 0:41] PR by 8 seconds
40 Terence Rascher (Jr) - 26:56.3 [(1) 7:18, (2) 9:23, (3) 9:36, (3.1) 0:39] SB by 2 minutes 6 seconds
41 Zachary Hailu (Fr) - 27:29.4 [(1) 7:34, (2) 8:48, (3) 10:23, (3.1) 0:44]
42 Oladimeji "Akin" Alade (So) - 28:18.2 [(1) 7:54, (2) 9:50, (3) 9:51, (3.1) 0:43]
44 Chase Osby (Sr) - 29:03.2 [(1) 8:00, (2) 10:35, (3) 9:50, (3.1) 0:38]  SB by 2 minutes 10 seconds
45 Luke Anthony Quach (So) - 29:12.9 [(1) 8:45, (2) 10:00, (3) 9:43, (3.1) 0:45] SB by 1 minute 33 seconds
47 William Dougherty (Fr) - 31:23.8 [(1) 8:41, (2) 9:53, (3) 11:57, (3.1) 0:53] PR by 6 minutes 2 seconds
49 Eddie Castillo-Gutierrez (So) - 33:50.5 [(1) 8:49, (2) 12:34, (3) 11:39, (3.1) 0:49]

We had several athletes making their season debut in this race, including a couple of high school cross country debuts.

Kenneth wasn't able to make it to our first few races, which was part of why he was in this open race instead of one of the first two races of the day. He had a tough challenge as he was all alone with no competition through most of the race. Though he had a couple of athletes close behind at the mile mark, he finished more than a minute in front of the second finisher.

Ian and Akin both ran in last week's Braddock Relays, but this was the first 5k of 2026 for both of them.

Zach and Eddie, meanwhile, ran their first high school races today after joining us for the first time earlier this week. The first week is always the hardest and for them to step out there and race so quickly after getting started is awesome.

We only had two returning athletes set new PRs today. One was our team captain, Renaud, in the JV race. The other was Sebastian Righi in this event with his first career sub-27 5k! Not to suggest this is a requirement to improve, but I've noticed over the summer that the two of them tend to be among the more reflective athletes on the team on their Strava posts after workouts. I've found for myself, even if I don't always go back to review those notes, just taking the time after a workout to reflect on what went well and what could have gone better helped me focus the next time out. I don't think it's a coincidence that these two stood out among our returners.

Like Blake and Dominic in the JV race, we had two first-year runners set big PRs in the open race today, too. Caene took nearly 2 minutes off his time today, skipping the 25s entirely, and Will dropped just over 6 minutes from his parkrun time two weeks ago. Athletes in their first year tend to see pretty big time jumps early on as they gain more familiarity with the distance. Those will stabilize over time, but big jumps like those suggest there is still a lot more time available to drop over the next 7 to 9 weeks.

Final Thoughts

I have a handful of thoughts coming out of this meet, and I'll do my best not to be long-winded with them.

I'm not too concerned with the lack of PRs for our returning athletes in the early part of this season, despite more of them taking summer training seriously than we've had in the past. It feels like we had more PRs by this time last season, but looking back the difference isn't significant and it is important to put our performances in context.

The way our training plan was built this year, we really focused on building mileage through the summer and only recently started incorporating more speed work. The distance allows our athletes to maintain speed for longer periods of time, which I think is showing up in so many of our athletes holding pace through those last two miles -- more on that shortly. What it did not address was the speed needed to cover 5k quickly. We only started building into that phase over the past couple of weeks, and it takes about that long before you start seeing the results of those workouts. I expect as we progress through this phase of our training, our athletes will see huge time drops over our next two races.

Jumping back to that thought about maintaining speed, Renaud was a great example of that today. Though he lost about 40 seconds between the first and second mile, which is something that should be addressed, he did a great job at that point to lock in and come back with a nearly identical third mile split before his finishing kick. Alex and Dane ran very similar races to Renaud today in that regard.

Some athletes had notably faster third miles than their seconds, including Kendall, Elijah, and Dominic in the varsity race, as well as Stephen in the JV race and Chase and Luke Anthony in the open race. Eddie did the same, though that was influenced heavily by his asthma causing breathing issues and forcing him to walk a good portion of the second mile.

The most significant negative split of the day was Kenneth's 24-second drop between his second and third miles. When I see those negative splits, I am simultaneously impressed by the ability to lock in while fatigued and concerned about the racing strategy it implies. We have to take terrain into consideration, but on today's course the second and third miles were nearly identical in terms of the terrain and elevation changes. Instead, this suggests one of two things may have happened for these athletes:

1. They went out too hard in the opening mile and showed enormous grit to hold things together to the finish line -- these athletes would probably benefit from running the first mile at least 5 to 10 seconds slower to try and maintain more consistent splits throughout the race.

2. They lost focus in the second mile and so had a lot of energy at their disposal for the final mile -- these athletes probably weren't running on empty by the final sprint and left a significant amount of time out there in the middle mile that they couldn't make up in the last straightaway.

I encourage all of our athletes to take some time looking through their splits and if you need help interpreting them -- meaning, if you'd like guidance on how to use them to develop your racing strategy -- talk to me or your other coaches. We're here to help you get better!

The final thing I want to bring up was a brief interaction I had with a coach at Catonsville while at the 1-mile mark waiting for our athletes to come through during the open race. He approached me, and his tone initially suggested he took issue with something one of our athletes had done. I thought I was going to have to address something serious.

Instead, he was offering commendations for the energy our athletes brought during the JV race. He said he was impressed with how many of our athletes, who were not in the race, were cheering with great intensity for every one of our JV runners who came through, "whether they ran 21 minutes or 27 minutes," in his words.

This is a great reminder for us that people are always watching us, so we do have to be mindful of how we act. But, more importantly, it is a moment for you all to pat yourselves on the back. I was very proud to hear from another coach that our athletes are supporting each other so well. I hope these recaps demonstrate how much I value every member of our team, no matter which race you are in or where you are in the standings. I am very proud of you all for demonstrating that same value for every one of your teammates. Continue to encourage each other and bring that energy every day!