MXC Update Oct. 20, 2013

Burlington County Championship Race Summary:   The County Championships are always bittersweet for the cross country team.   For the non-championship roster juniors and seniors, the race is the end of the line.   Therefore, a number of guys were in their last official XC race for Moorestown.  And, as we've come to expect from a class full of guys with class, they raced boldly and courageously, ending their careers on high notes.   Special shout-outs to:

• Senior Paul Entwistle, who capped a great year of training and racing to finish as our #1 runner in the Open Race, carving over a minute off his Mill Creek time last year. 
• Senior Greg Munilla, who actually sat in 2nd place through the mile before fading to 9th in the Open Race.
• Senior Greg Rothman, who, while he came up short in his quest to break 19m, boldly pushed to the front of the JV team, the third Moorestown finisher. 
• Senior Nick Novak, who saw a summer full of training again side swiped by injury, running his first race in weeks aggressively, finishing in 20:00.
• Senior Kevin Harris, who, finally healthy, raced his 3rd 5k in near-PR pace.
• Seniors Ryan Wheeler, Shayan Malta, Dominic Insalaca, and Chuck Spirgel also ran well. 

Thanks to all of our seniors.   You are a beloved class and your day-to-day impact will be missed!

Other performances of note:

• Brian Wright continues his late season surge, narrowly missing breaking the 20m make but still PRing and medaling in
• Mikey Vanaria has now thrown together back to back good efforts, again pushing his PR lower in the process.
• Vidas DeFilicis overcame acorn-gate to drop significant time off his 5k PR, lowering it to 22:25.  Bonus credit for finding the racing chip that fell off his shoe after the race.

The Varsity:

Kudos to Northern Burlington, as our league rivals ran away with the County title.   Moorestown ran well, regardless, finishing in 4th, only 4 points behind Cherokee and 10 behind runner-up Lenape.   The squad, as usual, was anchored by strong performances by Joe Inglis and Kevin Horten, who bested last year's times at Mill Creek to finish 5th and 7th overall.   Christian Cramer continued his solid string of performances, finishing 16th overall as our third finisher.   Harrison Morris, miraculously back after what seemed like a season ending injury last week, finished in a gutty 17:50, pushing through knee pain and tightness on the last mile.  And Nick Paoletti, the only varsity finisher to PR, finished right behind him in 17:51.  Frosh Kevin Fox continues to figure out how to race, this time show a killer kick to come in 6th on the team and 41st overall.   Mike Barsoum held down the 7th spot, running a solid race in 18:36.   All should feel good about the team effort, especially considering we trained through the race, working the guys hard for the sectional meet in November even at the expense of the Counties....

See Full Race Results here.

Upcoming this week:

We will be transitioning to the Championship portion of our season.  This means only the top dozen guys will continue to run, along with Freshman and Sophomores (who have two races left). So we big a fond farewell to the non-Championship Squad junior and seniors. Freshman and Sophomores are invited to continue to race through next week, with the SJ Frosh/Soph Championships on Monday, Oct. 21st and the Burlington County Frosh/Sophs the following week.   Continuing is NOT mandatory, as we only want runners focusing on strong finishes to their seasons.  

Divisional Championship - Thursday, Oct. 24.  We will be the last race of the day.

MXC Season Banquet is scheduled for Nov. 19th.  Everyone should plan on attending (all runners and their Parents), so please mark your calendars.  Robin Rothman is again spearheading the effort - Thank You!. Please fill out the formto let us know who will be attending.