MXC Weekly Update Oct. 16

This Past Week

The Cote Mile - Our Batch Meet season is over, but we had a special event on Tuesday as Coach Cote ran his first mile time trial with a goal of breaking 5:00.  He was set up well.  A season of running 9 miles per day most days with the high guys.  A set of pacers with Inglis, Horten, Howard and others.  And a raucous crowd to cheer him on.  The first 400 was a bit fast as they came thru in 72.  The 800 was right on pace at 2:30, but that meant he was slowing down.  Inglis hopped in and picked up the pace, but as Cote rounded the curve coming into the start of his final lap he looked ready to give up the dream.  That is when the crowd really went wild, and you could see he was just not going to let the team down.  A blazing last lap brought him home in 4:59.75.  A proud moment and a great team effort...

  

Burlington County Open - It was a beautiful cross country day.  Windy with massive storms mixed with sunshine and rainbows. As the JV warmed up in the back woods we had to jump a pretty big puddle of water on the back trail. By the time they raced, the puddle had grown and they were splashing thru it.  When the Varsity raced a half hour later, Howard hit the deepest spot and was submerged to his chest.  After the race, we went back and took a closer look. The swollen river from the rain and high tide had covered the course and about 50 feet of trail was covered.  Truly a great cross country day!

The highlight of the meet was our tremendous 3rd place finish!  We had been expecting to finish 5th, but ended up beating Shawnee by 2 points and Northern Burlington by 3 (109-111-112).  It is an important reminder of how every place counts.  Horten ran his best race of the year, narrowly beating Inglis for the first time.  Both placed in front of any Northern Burlington runner - reversing the results from our batch meet with them.  Howard recovered from his swim and ran a very tough race. Joe Inglis continues his emergence as our strong #4 runner.  Kramer stepped up as our #5 man this week - running the best race of his life.  If any of these guys had run just a few seconds slower we would have been 5th - the strength of the pack...  

We have a tough choice for our 7th slot as we head to the Liberty Division Championships this week.  Spirgel ran the Varsity race in 18:58 and Cain ran the JV race in 18:58.  We will be holding a mile time trial on Monday to decide who will be the 7th man on Thursday.

Times were not great, but we did have 4 PR's - Bauscher, LaLumia, Malta and Maier.  Nicely done on a tough course.

This is always a bittersweet race.  For many seniors it is their last race as part of the Moorestown Cross Country team.  So many thoughts come to mind.  Mike Connelly's many hard summer miles and tremendous improvement this year and his leadership skills on the Ultimate Frisbie fields.  Jay Jenei's hurdles and that great flash in the first half mile of the race on Friday.  Basle Lavery's quiet determination and consistency. Vincent Lee's radical improvement.  Dan Poaletti discovering his ability to run and becoming a great asset to the team even though he was only with us for 2 years.  Dan Sheehan and his big heart - a sometimes rough exterior, but he has been a core component of this team for 4 years and he loves this sport and team.  Kevin Zhang as a quiet, hard worker.  Of course many of these guys will continue to train with us thru the end of the season and come out for Spring track. We thank all of them for their contributions to the team.  And they can always count themselves as part of MXC!

This Coming Week - 

This is the end of the season for our Juniors and Seniors.  Freshmen and Sophomores have two races left - this Monday is the SJ Frosh-Soph Meet, and next Tuesday is the Burlington County Frosh-Soph meet at RV.  That meet is a great opportunity for PR's and coming home with some medals.  So all Frosh-Soph will continue to train.  Juniors and Seniors can continue to come out and train with the team - however this is the serious part of the season, and we want everyone to have focus on training hard.

Monday - South Jersey Frosh-Soph Meet.  This will be an opportunity for our freshman and sophomores to see how much they have improved since the SJ Shootout.  Bus leaves at 2:15.

Thursday - Liberty Division Championships.   After splitting our head-head competitions with Northern Burlington this year, we are looking forward to a very tough meet.  Starts at 3:45 at New Egypt.  We will be the third race.