10/3 - Gatorade Classic

One last regular season meet, one last trip to Alabama for the season. The XC teams raced in the Gatorade XC Classic (formerly known as Jesse Owens Classic), one of the largest meets in the country.  

The varsity boys led things off in the Silver division, preferring to race in a field that felt more like the State meet next month. The teams raced with great effort, given their fatigue from last week’s race and a solid block of training. So, while only Ike Tift PR’ed (by a fraction of a second!), the team average was faster than the same course three weeks ago, and the top 5 (Caleb Freifeld, Griffin Davidson, Drew Zwerner, Jack Fruin, and Ike) all placed in the top 25 of a 388-runner field. That placed the team first (by 90 points!) in a field of 43 teams. Fine efforts also happened behind the front five, with a special note for Oren Schwartz who ran well in his first varsity race.

 

​The girls were next to have at the course and toed the line 16 strong, with varsity and JV girls running all together for the first and only time this season. The first seven Tigers to cross the finish line were Madeleine Wiseman, Jackie Seale, Sydney Lasher, Greenlee Davidson, Charlotte Kehler, Lucy Garrison, and Layla Jahangir, with Charlotte being one of 3 girls to set all-time PRs on the day. While all-time PRs proved harder to come by, 12 runners improved their course PRs from three weeks ago. Sydney, Lucy, Olive Lueken, and Mia Seltzer all dropped over 1 minute. Special shout out to Lucy "rub some dirt on it" Garrison who got pushed to the ground while making a final surge attempt in her race, and still finished strong! In a field of 34 teams, the girls placed 10th overall.   

The JV boys were undeterred by the paucity of Varsity PRs, and they raced as well as we could have hoped for. The top 8 guys all PRed, led by Kireet Annam and Abe Boehler, both breaking 20 for the first time. The boys competed in a varsity-level race and beat multiple schools’ varsity squads.

 

​Complete meet results can be found HERE.  

With Fall Break close at hand, we’ll be back to training this week and then be ready to race at the Region championships on October 27th, with qualifying spots to the State meet at stake.