MXC Weekly Update - Oct. 13, 2012

This Past Week
Country Championships - http://nj.milesplit.com/meets/122220-burlington-co-open-championships. What a fantastic finish to the season for the non-Varsity Juniors and Seniors!  We had 30 PR's at the Mill Creek course yesterday - a testament to a lot of hard work from a bunch of the guys.

Klawunn had the race of the day - battling it out for the Open Race win with a Lenape runner.  Every time the Lenape runner opened up a gap Klawunn found it in himself to fight back.  The two of them traded places in that looooong finishing straightway with the Lenape runner nipping him at the end.  It was a courageous effort, and no shame in losing like that.  Of more importance is to note how far Klawunn has come since last year.  A real testament to a Senior who put in a ton of hard work in track, over the summer and this fall.  Also a great example of how to really race in this sport.

There were a ton of other great performances as well, with Caffrey locking down 4th overall, Poaletti setting another PR, and the early season injured pair of Rothman and Barsoum making fantastic comebacks.  Other PR's were recorded by both Spirgels (both BIG pr's), Contarino (former 400 man), Entwhistle, Bauscher, Insalaco, Khan, Dyer, Argentieri, Novak, Levinson, Andrew Voyack, Reubel (still a 400 man), Graham, Gross, Maier, Schaffhauser, Malta, LaGatta (again!), Feldan, Elia, Vanaria, Infanger, Sklar, and Marcus Topel (sooo much faster than even a short BCIT course at the beginning of the year!). You can see the season times at http://www.moorestownxc.org/2011/2012XCResults.pdf.  

For the Varsity race, it was more of the same.  Just a super-competitive set of races especially by the top 4 guys.  It looked like Inglis decided just to go out with the top pack of Lenape runners and the great Shawn Wilson of Cherokee right from the start, and Horten was tracking right on him.  As the race progressed Wilson broke free, but Inglis and Horten held their ground very well, ending up 4th and 6th overall. Kramer and Howard got out aggressively as well and ran with absolute determination the whole race - keeping in contact with each other and living the "strength of the pack" motto.  Morris got out a bit slow, but battled the whole way, picking up important spots.

Our best competitor this year has been Northern Burlington, who ran faster than us at the SJ Shootout and in our Dual Meet.  On this day it was NB-Inglis-Horten-NB - essentially canceling each other out.  Then it was NB-Kramer-Howard-NB - again canceling each other out.  So those important spots Morris was picking up really meant something as he placed 34th and the NB 5th man was 39th - giving us the edge over NB by 5 points for the day.  Siegel also ran a great race and has a shot at playing an important role either as 5th man or in pushing back other team's 4th and 5th men in these Championship races.  We missed Schneider - he had a foot problem that hopefully will be gone by Thursday.  Lenape won the meet, but our 2nd place finish was fantastic!

This Coming Week

Monday - SJ Frosh-Soph Championships at GCC.  The bus will leave at 2:15 on Monday with all Frosh and Sophs racing.  This and the following Tuesday Burlington County Frosh-Soph meet are the final two races for those guys and a great way to end the season. 

Thursday - Liberty Division Championships at New Egypt.  The bus will leave at 2:15.  This is obviously going to be another head-head matchup with Northern Burlington.  We want to win this one, and will be doing a bit of tapering this week to give ourselves the best shot at getting after these guys.

Again, a special shout-out to all the Juniors and Seniors who finished their seasons on Friday.  We wish the Seniors well, hoping to see them in track season or that they remember their MXC days when running road races when they are 55.  For Juniors, we hope to see you at the benches this summer.  XC season is really made in the heat of July and August!

PERSONAL NOTE

As you probably can tell, I (Bob Bickel) write these weekly updates as a way to express my excitement for the great work and effort this team puts forward. I am so lucky Eagles and Cote let me volunteer and hang around to help with this team.

I have asked the coaches and captains of the boys and girls team to support a program that has become very important to me - the Orkeeswa School Running Club.  This is the club my daughter, Allison, helped get off the ground this year at the school where she is teaching in Tanzania.  The school is in a remote Maasai village that had no secondary education opportunities until several years ago when it was founded by an American (Peter Luis) and Tanzanian (Rapha Robert). This year the Running Club was able to attend the Kilimanjaro Marathon with 37 students running the Half and the 5K.  They were also able to host the first ever XC Invitational with 4 other school coming.  We have decided that the Moorestown XC Teams will sponsor the Orkeeswa Running Club with a $1,000 donation each year from the Turkey Trot proceeds.

The founders of the school will be giving a presentation on Wednesday Night at 7PM at the Middle School.  I would like to ask that you do me the favor of attending - both parents and students.  This will be educational and hopefully inspirational for your families and friends.  I also want to show them our community support for the important educational opportunity they are bringing to these students who have so little, yet have so much heart.  Please see the Facebook page for more information - http://www.facebook.com/events/478599872173000/. You can also see a video of the Cross Country race they held at http://youtu.be/GwNxlm2z45Q. 

MXC Weekly Update - Oct. 7, 2012

This Past Week

We had our last dual meet of the season at Cinnaminson on Tuesday.  I don't have the meet results posted yet, but from the quick report I got it was a good, solid race.  The only two stories I heard were how Horten and Inglis had learned from the week before at the home meet and sat on the Cinnaminson runner for two miles and then pulled away for the win.  The other story I heard was how a couple of the guys took a wrong turn.  Another reason to go out with the leaders...

On Saturday we made the big trip to Holmdel Park for the Shore Coaches race.  There were 27 races from 9AM until 5PM - http://nj.milesplit.com/meets/120028-2012-shore-coaches-xc-invitational. The Freshman got the day off to a great start with Schneider and Morris going 4th and 6th!  Certainly the best Freshman showing in Moorestown history. The Freshman team compete against each other, so it was important to get all 5 scoring runners across the line. They were followed by Cramer, Dyer and Wright with Argentieri in hot pursuit for a 4th place as a team - very nice. Feldon had one of the best finishes of the day battling back and forth with another runner coming down the line and holding him off.  We loved the determination of everyone on this freshman team!

The Varsity were up next and had a very solid day given that Schneider and Morris were in the Freshman race.  With a team average time of 17:50, we were one of the fastest Group 3 schools at the meet.  We were 14 seconds and 24 seconds off of the Ocean City and Kingsway team times.  Delsea, also a rival in the South section, was also at 17:50.  Horten and Inglis ran a great race together, finishing 10th and 12th.  Howard had an absolutely fabulous last mile picking up around 20 runners and finishing 37th.  Kramer had an off day, but we loved his guts at the end.  He was in a pack of about 8-10 runners.  Finishing a second faster or slower is a difference of 8-10 points to the team, and he ran aggressively and was at the top of that pack.  Siegel really put it out there running with Howard for almost the first two miles before Howard explosive mile drive.  Caffrey and Klawunn had a chance to run Varsity this week and had solid races.

The JV race was at the end of the day and I was not there to report, so can only look at the times.  Poaletti continues to improve and had a great time of 19:26 - 7th fastest of the day for 5K.  We also had three PR's (a difficult achievement since this course runs about 30-45 seconds slower than last week's Delsea course) - Insalaco, LaGatta and Elia - nice job!

Also special thanks to Brian Wright for figuring out where I had lost my iPhone at our McDonlads-BurgerKing-WaWa stop on the way home in Jackson!

This Coming Week

Friday - County Championships at Mill Creek.  This will be the last meet for Juniors and Seniors who are not part of the Championship Squad.  Always a bittersweet reminder of how fast time flies.  It will be a new course this year - eliminating the wooded section where a number of runners went swimming in the rain and high tide of last year's race.  For more info, go to http://home.comcast.net/~ecolona/ED3.htm.