The 2016 season of Cross Country is upon us and I'm looking forward to coaching our #SmallButMighty team because #XCisinourname.
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I apologize to anyone following this blog for not posting since before the end of last season. Since the Kearney Invitational in 2015, the team traveled to Maryville on Halloween morning for the District meet. It was drizzly and muddy making it difficult to navigate around the course. It could've easily been cited as a mud run! Straw was put down in the worst places, but that didn't seem to matter. One hairpin turn in particular was difficult to maintain footing in. A boy who was on the tail of the top two runners had his feet slide out from under him. He jumped back up to run, but was never able to gain enough ground to make a difference.
After both Class 3 races were over, none of the Excelsior Springs Tigers qualified for the Missouri Class 3 Championships. Brent Shelor finished first for the Tiger boys, but 19th overall. There were three boys ranging from 22nd through 26th. For the girls, Katelen Patterson was first of the Tigers to cross the finish line, but was 21st overall. There was only one personal record set for the day. It was attained by Joel Courtney. Logan Stock and Autumn Summers had season best times, yet neither were good enough to move on to the next level. For Kenna Price, Brent Shelor, Seth Edwards, and Logan Stock, it was their last race in high school. In recent news, the 2016 District Championships will take place at the same location. It will be held on Oct 29. Hopefully, it will be drier than the 2015 meet! What seems like the first meet in a while not altered due to construction, Kearney seemed to be bigger than ever. From small Class 1 schools to large Class 4 schools, runners from as far away as Columbia came to run at Jesse James Park. The order of races was switched around from what they were last year. This season, JV Girls ran first followed by the JV Boys, Varsity Girls, Varsity Boys, and ending with Freshman races.
Tiger highlights for this meet were few. Autumn Summers ran her best time on this course and finished with her best time of the season, the first under 30 minutes. Running for the JV Boys, Joel Courtney set another personal record by finishing under 22 minutes for the first time of his young career. On Varsity, Katelen Patterson and Seth Edwards both had their best times on this course. Freshman, Caleb Shepard, set another personal record on his first 5k race at Jesse James Park. One thing in particular pointed out by Coach Brownsberger of Cameron was that the Varsity Boys stuck together from start to finish. It was the first time they had been so close together crossing the finish line, especially in a race of this magnitude with 195 runners. The first to cross, Noah Birkeness, placed 69th and the last Tiger to finish, Brent Shelor, placed 88th for a difference of only 19 spots. All five Varsity boys were under 20 minutes ranging from 19:18.0 to 19:37.0, a difference of a mere 19 seconds! Unfortunately, Shelor was the first runner not to receive a medal in the race. Earning medals at the Kearney Invitational were Kylin Weaver (JV Girls), and Noah Birkeness, Seth Edwards, Caleb Shepard, and Logan Stock (Varsity Boys). For the first time in Excelsior Springs Cross Country history, middle school teams were allowed to compete at the home meet of the ES Tigers. This was done to replace the middle school meet on the school campus due to construction of a new community center where the start and finish lines would be. The meet being replace was a dual with Grain Valley being the only visiting school in attendance. There were as many as six middle schools competing today and other schools looking to take advantage in the coming years. Once again, construction at the site of the next Cross Country meet - our home meet - caused changes to be made to the course. The city is replacing the old asphalt cart paths with concrete cart paths. It just so happens that the part they were updating was along fairway 11 and at the end of the runway of the Excelsior Springs Airport. To avoid the construction, the running path for the meet had to be rerouted. Instead of crossing over the cart path to run alongside fairway 11, it stayed on the opposite side. The only thing it did was to move the finish line a little further up the hill from where it would have been otherwise on fairway 10. Also, we didn't have any idea how many teams there would be. That was Coach Smarker's (me) fault. Better communication would have gotten the answer fairly quickly. So the starting line had 22 boxes about seven feet wide each. We should have had 29 boxes since the middle school runners were participating, too. It wasn't that big of a deal, though, since the boxes were so wide. The official allowed the runners to spread out before starting the race. It was nice having Chris Rebella as our official. As for the races, none of the Varsity Girls earned a medal (top 25). Katey, Katelen, and Kenna all finished close together with decent times. None of the Varsity Boys earned medals either, although Seth and Noah finished 26th and 27th respectively. So close! The bad news is that Lane's leg was bothering him too much to give it his all. The only medal earned went to Kylin Weaver who finished 5th in the JV Girls race. She did it in good fashion by recording a personal record, too. For the JV boys, Owen had a strong race, but came up short on the medal count as well. In summary, there were three personal records set, all by first year runners, Noah, Kylin, and Owen. Of the Varsity Boys, all but Lane record their best times on the course as did Autumn of the JV Girls. Katelen Patterson missed a course best time by .5 seconds! ![]() I was asked to submit an athlete of the week for the Excelsior Springs Standard. This is a difficult decision to make because there are so many great stories of athletes with strong work ethic and glorious self-improvements. Since Senior Week for Cross Country will be Tue, Oct 6, it seemed fitting to choose a senior who meets the criteria mentioned. My choice for athlete of the week from the Cross Country team is Kenna Price. When Kenna was recruited to join the team, she asked what a normal time was for girls in Cross Country. The average time for a Varsity girl would be somewhere in the 22 to 23 minute range. She didn't sound too thrilled about that because her personal record time was over 27 minutes. I told her not to be discouraged about that because I would see to it that she improved as long as she did what was asked. Kenna's effort and determination has been the reason for her success. She started out as a JV runner until she began showing improvement and consistency in speed. In her very first official 5k in Chillicothe, she placed first in the JV Girls race with a time of 25:38. The next two races were a little slower, but not bad considering the hot weather and long upward slopes. When we had our first cool early morning race at Marshall, she responded in a big way with a second place finish in under 24 minutes. Following that race was the hilliest course we run on at Krug Park in St. Joseph. Still, she had a respectable time in the low 25's and received her third medal in only five races. This was her first Varsity medal. Finally, at the most recent meet in Grain Valley, Kenna pushed herself to a 5k time of less than 23 minutes as a Varsity runner and in the top 50%. That may not sound all that great unless the teams she was up against were taken into consideration. Besides Grain Valley, there were other Class 4 teams with speedy runners participating. The main point is that Kenna has learned to pace herself when running and focusing on improving consistently. She has done that and, no doubt, will continue to strive to be the best she can be. Like so many other Tiger runners, she has her heart set on qualifying for State. That in itself will not be an easy feat, but I don't have any doubts that she will give it all she has. After speaking with the GV coaches and receiving an invitation to run at Grain Valley instead of KC Metro, it sounded like this would be the flattest and fastest course that we would run all season. In a bold prediction, the athletes were told by their coach that half of them would reach personal records due to cooler weather and a flat course. As it turns out, only five of the 12 runners would make it, however, one was only 1/2 second away from a PR. Another was about five seconds short. Six of the runners who didn't set a personal record had their season best times. Unfortunately, none of the runners received medals for their excellent efforts. If anything, their confidence levels received a tremendous boost.
In an effort to leave before the crowd and go to lunch, we forgot to take team pictures. :-( Lafayette's cross country course had changed for the first time in recent memory. It is still at the same location at Krug Park, but due to St Joseph's Parks & Recreations Department, some construction has been taking place forcing the meet director to make those changes. That seems to be the common theme this year!
Lafayette has a total of five different races. There are Varsity Boys and Girls, JV Boys and Girls, and 9th Grade Boys races. Because the JV Girls and 9th Grade Boys run 4 km instead of 5 km, the Tigers were all put into 5k races. This is the hilliest course of the season and the runners needed a good workout, so this was it. Six of the seven girls ran Varsity at this meet. Katey Moerschel sat out due to a medical issue. Katelen Patterson continues to lead the girls to the finish line. Kenna Price keeps getting better as she finished in the medal count, too. Seven boys ran in the Varsity race and the remaining three ran on JV. Although none of them were in the medal count (top 20), the team performed at a higher level and are gained ground in the points standings on some of their district opponents. They're still behind Chillicothe and Maryville, but have surpassed Cameron. In summary, the Tigers were represented by 10 boys and six girls. Of those, there were three medalists - two Varsity Girls and one JV Boy. In addition, there was only one personal record time set by Owen Edwards, the only boy who received a medal (and ice cream for his PR!). Of the seven who ran a 5k at Krug Park in past years, three had course best times. There are still several more races to go to make improvements for both teams. They are definitely up for the challenge as they push themselves and each other hoping for a chance to qualify for State. Finally! Finally, we had a cool morning race and a flat course to run on! And it was good, too. One Varsity Boy, Brent Shelor, earned a medal in his race, but JV picked up the pace bringing in four more. For the JV Girls, Kenna Price and Kylin Weaver placed 2nd and 3rd, respectively. For the JV Boys, Noah Birkeness and Caleb Shepard 5th and 7th, respectively.
Varsity Girl, Katelen Patterson, missed receiving a medal by two spots, but it didn't matter. She was grinning ear to ear because of her time. She was excited to set a new personal record, the first for her this season. Her hard work is paying off. To top it off, she wasn't the only one. Of the 16 Tigers, there were a total of 10 personal records and six season best times. For the veterans, three of the season best times were also course best times. To summarize, every Tiger had a good race and either set a personal record or season best time. That is a big boost this team needed to show that their hard work in training is paying off. The season is half over now and there is no time to rest. We need to keep forging ahead with and end goal of success in mind. There were 393 competitors who participated in Smithville's Cross Country Invitational this year and only 60 medals were handed out to those who placed within the top 20 of the Varsity races and top 10 in the JV races. Representing Excelsior Springs Tigers in the medal count were Varsity Girls Katelen Moerschel and Katelen Patterson. For the Varsity Boys, Seth Edwards was the only recipient. Moerschel and Edwards had their best times of the season. Seth came up 1.5 seconds shy of his personal record which was set on the same course a year ago.
Other season best times for veteran runners were made by Lane Rogers, Halley Parkin, and Autumn Summers. Two first year runners ran their first 5k races of the season - Owen Edwards and Drew Shook. Now they have baseline times from which to improve upon. The Platte County Invitational was a hot and humid day with a slight possibility of rain. The rain never came, though. It would have been a welcome relief for those running in the sweltering heat.
The course had to be changed due to construction. There is a new football field and additional soccer fields being installed, so the area where the finish line used to be was closed off resulting in alterations to the last mile of the course. The Tigers didn't look so good. The grass wasn't cut short enough and, of course, the heat and humidity didn't help any. As it turns out, other coaches felt that it was slow for everyone. There were no personal records, no season best times, nor any course best times to brag about. The athletes are ready for cooler weather. |
AuthorAs the Head Coach of the Excelsior Springs High School Cross Country boys and girls teams, I take pride in watching the athletes improve during a season and from one season to the next. It's rewarding to see them accomplish so much. My goal is to have both teams qualify for and advance to state during the same season. Archives
September 2016
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