Home 8-29-23
/
School hasn’t even started yet, but after two and a half weeks of practice the runners were ready to start racing! Quite a bit more pleasant than last year, although it certainly still had that early season hot and humid feel.
Girls lined up first, with John Stark and an incomplete Lebanon team prepared to start their season. Our guest starter, Jessi, sounded a very solid horn blast to get the race rolling and the 2023 racing season was under way! Lily wasted no time galloping to the lead, with Maddy and Sydney just behind. After a couple John Stark runners there was a group of three more MV girls, Kiera, Tessa, and Kendra, giving MV a substantial team lead in the early going. The sub-7 first mile did eventually take it’s toll on the leaders, but Lily was never really tested en route to her first ever high school win. She’s undefeated this year! Lily was also awarded the first “Awesome Award” of the year for her performance. Maddy also stayed unchallenged finishing second, 51 seconds ahead of third place. An indicator of how well the girls ran was the fact that the 4th place girl, who finished 61 seconds behind Maddy, placed well ahead of them at last year’s Division Meet. That’s improvement! Sydney, after bravely holding third up through the second mile, eventually finished a solid 5th, 10 minutes faster than in 2022. The shocker of the day however was our 4th runner…Keira, finishing in 10th place overall and running an all-time PR! Now we know how fast you really are!
Not too far back was Tessa, finishing as our #5 and already securing a varsity letter by virtue of the top-5 finish. Bravely battling the anti-Kendra weather, Ms. Davidson was next and our 6th and final sub-30 minute runner. Emily followed two minutes later in her first high school race, while our soon-to-be driver Nicole drove across the line as our 8th girl. Reagan, in her first race EVER, was our 9th, while Lydia ran a great race to wrap up the finishing for MV. Despite the big early lead, John Stark was able to remain patient and claw back to tie us for the lead at 28 points, however eked out the win with the 6th-place tie-breaker. A classic reminder that everyone matters! A superb effort today though, and a great start to the season!
Next up were the boys…
A great rust buster/first meet for the boys today. The boys ran smart and under control for an exceptional season opener. Mychal led the way in 19:10, just 10 seconds off his home PR. Nate had the veteran performance of the day with a home course PR in 20:33. Nate was followed by Tony and Ben G with the rookie performances of the day in 20:53 and 20:56. Rounding out the top 5 was Ben N in 21:25. Chris and Sam worked together throughout the race finishing in 24:01 and 24:03. Silas was close behind in 24:52. Westin returned strong from North Carolina finishing 25:46. Cooper and Jonathan also had a great opener nearly breaking 30. They finished in 31:01 and 31:18.
Sam B took another big step in his running. He started the year with a 14 minute mile in the team time trial. This week he completed his first mile non stop and today he finished the 5k course in 32:21. A huge early season improvement.
Almost forgot to mention they won the meet! Congratulations boys!