The "Run-Down": Saxon Invite 2011

 

As well as the Panthers ran today, maybe we should have run to Starbucks after the meet instead of waiting for the bus to be fixed... we might have gotten there sooner! The fixing of the bus was the slow part of the day as the Panthers were fast and furious on an overcast morning with cool temperatures at Salem's Bush Park today.

 

The Varsity Girls started things off for the Panthers. The panther 3 pack of Seniors Kendall Utter and Kayla Lockard with Sophomore Hannah Wright dipped under the 23 minute barrier. For Kayla and Hannah, a bit of a pleasant surprise as they were hesitant to believe coach's assessment from recent workouts that they were ready too. Big P.R.'s by over a minute were the result for them. Next across the line was Junior Kalli Light, who apparently ran a perfectly even paced race, passing runners with confidence all the way to the finish line. Her time of 24:10.3 has her closing in on Hockinson #4. A fine race from sophomore Kelsey Lagerquist rounded out the scoring five, with her time of 25:16 over 1 faster than last week. On the team side, we were the smallest of the 18 schools, and pulled out 16th.

 

If 3 out of 4 ain't bad, then 6 out of 7 must be pretty darn good! That is how many lifetime P.R.'s we established in the next race, the varsity guys, where team captains Junior Sean Eustis and Senior Noah Collins made their 2011 debut. Fellow classmate Isaac Stinchfield pulled Sean along the first 3 miles with both of them in the awards running, just the top six places this week! Then Sean's 800 meter speed kicked in as he blasted away from Isaac and catapulted himself into 4th. There were some minor discrepancies in the official times for this race, so posted here and below is what seems most likely... Sean's 16:01.6 and Isaac's 16:06.6 ranks them #4 and #5 in the 2A state Rankings, and #2 and #3 on the all-time Panther List. Noah set the pace for P.R.'s from Junior Geer McGee and freshman Nicolas Velardi, for the first two miles or so. With no races under his belt yet this season, he could quite keep the pace, but is bound to be able to soon. Geer crossed the line in 18:21 and Nicolas finished in 18:22 (the 12th best on the course this day of slightly over 100 frosh). Noah's time of 18:41 is a satisfactory place to start the season. Two more P.R.s came from freshmen Blake Roberts (18:57) and Rusty Shiluk (19:12). Team wise, the Panther Boys were a very competitive 8th place against all though bigger schools.

 

One of the major highlights of the day came from watching Freshman Karina Miller and Sophomore Megan Anderson run like veterans as they moved through the see of one less than 200 runners in the Future Varsity race. Karina's time of 24:25.5 was good enough for 45th place and Megan's time of 24:38.7 landed her in 51st. The lone P.R. in that race (as several had not raced 5K before) came from sophomore Serene Dunn, timed in 27:09.4, 14 seconds faster than her end of season race last year. Our future Varsity girls captured 13th place in the team race scoring.

 

The last race of the day (future varsity boys) was where junior Darian Tierney took vengeance towards last week's "melt down" in the Run-A-Ree heat fest. Missing his expected assignment to run varsity (where he could have made it 7 of 8 for P.R.'s for the Panthers), his energized stride electrified him to 22nd place in 19:10, a 40 second P.R., and over 2 minutes faster than last year's Saxon performance. First time performer in senior Nathan Milojevic was solid in his racing tactics and freshman Jacob Bowen was flat out incredible responding to the coaches' instruction to pass massive numbers of opponents by certain check points. Sophomores Dakota Krecklow and Brendon Brown rounded out the scoring five to give us a placing of 12 in that race.

 

I have begun to see some incredible levels of commitment starting to materialize on this team! Today we did improve like crazy and we are ready to shock the teams currently ahead of us very soon!

 

Coach Terry L. Howard

 

Here are the line scores:

 

FV Boys

 

Mile 1

Mile 2

5000 M

 

Darian

22nd

5:56

12:20

19:10

P.R.

Nathan

66th

 

12:55

20:16.7

 

Jacob B

72nd

6:28

12:57

20:20.3

 

Dakota

124th

6:47

13:47

21:34.1

 

Brendon

172nd

7:12

14:50

22:54.8

 

Jacob S

176th

6:46

14:11

23:01.4

 

Zach O

212th

7:50

16:05

24:44.1

 

 

Of 231

 

 

 

 

FV Girls

 

 

 

 

 

Karina

45th

7:46

15:48

24:25.5

 

Megan

51st

 

16:02

24:38.7

 

Sydney H

109th

8:09

16:56

26:26.9

 

Serene

131st

 

17:28

27:09.4

P.R.

Kari

132nd

 

17:39

27:10.3

 

Kaitlyn

133rd

 

17:40

27:11.2

 

Sydney N

134th

7:48

16:50

27:12.3

 

 

of 198

 

 

 

 

Varsity Boys

 

 

 

 

 

Sean

4th

4:58

10:14

16:01.6

P.R.

Isaac

6th

4:58

10:14

16:06.6

P.R.

Geer

79th

5:39

11:52

18:21

P.R.

Nicolas

80th

5:42

11:49

18:22

P.R.

Noah

97th

5:38

11:52

18:41

 

Blake

107th

5:43

12:05

18:57

P.R.

Rusty

114th

5:45

12:08

19:12

P.R.

 

of 143

 

 

 

 

Varsity Girls

 

 

 

 

 

Kendall

77th

6:57

14:33

22:48.0

 

Kayla

84th

7:01?

14:30

22:51

P.R.

Hannah

85th

7:12

14:45

22:54

P.R.

Kalli

105th

7:37

15:31

24:10.3

 

Kelsey

120th

7:48

16:33

25:16.0

 

Brooke

127th

7:48

16:33

25:47.8

 

Katie

130th

7:49

16:44

26:17.5

 

 

of 133