The "Run-Down": Mark Morris @ Home

 

It was our first home meet of the year; but we were not quite sure where home was! With a last minute change of venues, our feet landed at the Round Lake park in Camas. Half of our athletes had never run around the lake before today. We were fortunate enough to perform some summer workouts there, so some of us actually felt at home.

 

The girls get to race first at our league meets this year. So we lined up eight of our nine Lady Panthers, holding out one of our normal scores due to injury. Mark Morris managed to squeeze five Monarchs to the line, but missing there "Starr" runner. That gave the Panthers a significant upper hand.

 

In this race, the quantity of the Panthers prevailed over the quality of the Monarch (not to say that we did not have any quality of our own). Mark Morris girls captured 3 of the top 5 spots, and then the barrage of Panthers plowed across the finish line, and thus solidifying the win. Sophomore Karina Miller faded from 2nd to 4th as she worked through some cramping in her legs, so junior Paige Roberts took up the slack by outkicking the second Mark Morris girl on this day. Junior Hannah Wright held onto a solid 6th place, with our ever improving freshman Meredith Collins less than a hundred meters behind. Junior Megan Anderson looked awesome, as she could actually "look" towards higher placing without her glasses for the first time. A week into her new contacts and she finally got to race in them. Our sixth girl across the line was Junior Brooke Croeni, a good 50 meters in front of their #4. The times were far from impressive as the challenging hill on the east side of the lake proved to be the biggest opponent for the girls on this day. Consequently, this was our first "black" course of the season. A four point win over the Monarchs was nice today, but we know we will need to work hard and stay healthy to keep that type of margin over them at the end of the year. Juniors Sydney Hickey and Serene Dunn rounded out the Panthers around Round Lake on our Dual League Meet season opener. Junior Brooke Croeni found a way to be the only girl to improve on her black course P.R.

 

The dynamics of the boy's race proved to be more intense. Supposedly, Mark Morris boys laid on the line their league winning streak dating back to 2007. The Panthers were hungry for a win against them. Senior stars Sean Eustis and Isaac Stinchfield snatched onto an early lead with a solid, but not overwhelming pace, thus allowing the new kid on the block to hang with them for a while. Junior Thomas Normandeau was the reason the Panthers felt like they had an excellent opportunity to snap that Mark Morris win streak. The Sean and Isaac 1-2 punch could not be touched by the Monarchs; not one could stay within 30 seconds of them by the time they hit the finish line. The two of them wisely spent some of their extra energy yelling and screaming for teammates during the race and for the few minutes after they finished. Sean's extra burst of speed in the picnic area bested Isaac by 2-3 steps this week. The marvelous first loop by Thomas (in 5th at the time) helped scare the Mark Morris at the U-Turn, where we held a one point advantage. Thomas slipped back a place due to slight flu symptoms, thus forecasting to be very impressive third runner on the team when completely healthy and more experienced. Freshman standout Bailey Duncan (9th) bounced back from a dismal race last week to be the first frosh across the line. Bailey was followed closely by sophomore Nicolas Velardi (10th) as they jockeyed for position throughout the race. The performance of our top 5 was enough to normally beat the Monarch based on previous races of the year, but they managed to get a "race of a lifetime" improvement from Senior Austin Brambaugh, capturing 8th place and giving the Monarchs a precarious one point victory to extend their winning streak (most likely for another full year).

 

Freshman Luke Belzer was the next frosh across the line in 11th, and not far behind in 13th was the third of 8 frosh in the race, Collin Manning, displaying intense focus as he finished strong. Other intense finishes and fine races came from junior Anthony Velardi, senior Darian Tierney, sophomore Jacob Smart (even though he, too, was battling some flu symptoms) and freshman Taylor Leifsen who moved up two slots on the team this race. Sophomore Jacob Bowen and junior Aaron Dunn were the only two Panther boys that eclipsed their black course P.R.

 

For the weekend, the girls get to take a fun adventure to Seaside while the boys stay home and train for a big weekend next week at the Nike Pre-Nationals.

  

Coach Terry L. Howard

 

Here are the line scores:

 

Varsity Boys

 

Mile 1

Mile 2

5000 M

 

Sean

1st

5:45

11:05

17:22

 

Isaac

2nd

5:45

11:05

17:23

 

Thomas

6th

5:51

11:50

18:52

 

Bailey

9th

6:38

12:51

19:52

 

Nicolas

10th

6:38

12:51

20:00

 

Luke

11th

6:38

13:01

20:13

 

Collin

13th

6:52

13:05

20:41

 

Anthony

14th

6:39

13:05

20:50

 

Jacob B

17th

7:25

14:14

21:50

P.R. - Black

Blake

18th

6:56

13:43

21:53

 

Aaron

19th

7:10

13:55

22:01

P.R. - Black

Darian

20th

7:03

13:56

22:04

 

Taylor

21st

7:45

14:37

22:41

 

Jacob S

24th

7:18

14:26

22:43

Jordon

23rd

7:48

15:19

23:40

 

Dylan

24th

7:48

15:18

24:24

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Varsity Girls

 

 

 

 

 

Paige

2nd

7:49

15:04

23:38

 

Karina

4th

7:31

14:59

24:07

 

Hannah

6th

8:07

15:47

25:01

 

Meredith

7th

8:21

16:03

25:17

 

Megan

8th

8:23

16:03

26:08

 

Brooke

9th

8:20

17:44

26:45

P.R. - Black

Sydney

11nd

8:45

17:22

27:43

 

Serene

12th

8:55

17:30

28:09

 

 

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