| Another hot one at this meet, as
it always seems to be. The heat certainly affects
everyone differently and there were some good
performances, but many had difficulty due to the heat. We
did improve our varsity place by two from last year
although a couple of unexpected teams ahead of us. While
the top three teams are very good, we should be able to
beat the others on a better day. Certainly a difficult
meet to start with, but it is good to see where we stand
against some very tough competition. Willmar, a section
2AA opponent, looked especially good, winning while
missing two of their top five. Next week at Monticello,
it seems like today's 4th place finisher Sartell might be
the team to beat? On JV, it was very exciting to have a
complete team (at least 5 runners) for the first time in
the last eight years. They finished 6th, ahead of eight
other teams, led by Seth Buntrock. All of our JV runners
today didn't run the JV at this meet last year. On
varsity, Bryan Kegley was our #1 runner for the first
time in a meet, and he had the run of the day! Fifth
place is the 2nd best on varsity in the last ten years
while his time is the best in the seven years running the
same course. Certainly a breakthrough day for Bryan,
running against some tough opponents. Bryan ran his
season best time by 48 seconds and was only 1 second from
his best ever! Running a personal best time is hard to do
in the first meet of the year and in the heat, but Justin
Fain managed to do that. He cut 31 seconds from his best
ever! Carsen Sorensen had a very good run in his first
time on varsity in a meet and only missed his best ever
by 5 seconds while cutting 41 seconds from his season
best. Also running their best times of the season were
Erik Griep, who ran 1:08 better than his best time trial,
Matt Beckman, who ran 1:07 better, and Derek Schwarzrock,
who ran 58 seconds better. While not his best time of the
year, Zach Zimmermann still managed to cut 29 seconds
from a year ago. Congratulations also to Daniel Benjamin
and Stephan Walker as they ran well in their first meet
ever on the team. As mentioned, the next meet is
Monticello with competition not as deadly and, hopefully,
more cooperative weather. As a whole, we should improve
from this meet. |