Coach Mikes Blog

in meets by coach mike on 26 Oct 2008

Glad that is over. The weather was good. The girls ran the first race, someone ask me, “do the girls always run first?” Well I guess so, why? I don’t know. Maybe its a time issue, knowing the girls races will take a little longer and then there will be more time to figure the results. Anyway the girls ran at 10 am. Our girls ran in a pack, all 6 of them, together through most of the first mile plus of the race. I thought they looked good, working together. Racing together. Chelsea and Kaity broke loose first and started moving up. We knew we couldn’t win, but we were shooting for 2nd. Also this time of the year the girls are racing for a spot on the All Southern Illinois team, so they know who they need to beat to get on that 14 member team picked each fall by a panel of coaches. Plus top 5 teams advance to the sectional the next week. We always like the idea of seeing how far we can get into post season. Chelsea ended up in our number 1 spot with Kaity number two, I think that is the first time Kaity has been number 2 for us this year. Next was Tiffani and then Alyssa followed by Courtney and Paige. The team finished 3rd and had a good solid race. Out of probably 100 plus  teams we will be one of the 20 that get to move on!!!

The boys came into the race, probably ranked 2nd, definitely behind Mt. Vernon. We knew what we needed to do and we knew we could do what was needed. Our top three went out with the top group. Nix has been racing very strong here of late and his practices have been top notch, Kubicki is finally over his illness and looking stronger each day, Jones on the other hand has been sick, he only practiced the first part of the week. But these three guys were on a mission, Jones and Nix both have a lot of pride, with both battling for the top spot on the team, Kubicki is just now getting his confidences back and starting to feel it. The three of them battling makes the workouts so much better and could pay off for all three of them. Back to the race-with the three of them racing so well, we were in the hunt-the freshman Heser had a bad start but starting picking things up, he just likes to race and beat people-our number 5 T Goff was starting to pick up steam as well. We raced very well with our top 3 in the top 10, and Heser in 14th and Goff in 16th. Mt. Vernon went 2 and 3, we went 4,6, 7. The final score being Mt. Vernon 43 and Salem 47. So we are still looking for that perfect race and hoping next weekend will be it!

The Cats and Lady Cats both had a good first race for post season, the seniors Courtney, Jacob and Jordan get to race a another day!

in meets by coach mike on 24 Oct 2008

The week has turned sour with the weather, we did get three good days of work in and have coasted the last two days (that includes today Friday) Saturday is the big day, the start of our”playoffs”. Both teams should, will advance to the next round, the girl should be 2nd or 3rd, the boys have a shot at the title but Mt. Vernon will be tough to beat in Mt. Vernon, of course you never know, thats why they run the races! The race could come down to our 6th place runner. Too nervous to type more! Later-Good luck and may God bless.

in meets by coach mike on 24 Oct 2008

Very please with the last regular season races. The f/s boys won with the help of two sophomores that I hold will run next year. They won very easily. Jared White could be a big help to us next year (could of been this year) and Caleb Lusch would be a great middle of the pack runner. Add them to Heser, Clark, Meigs and then the juniors and then the incoming freshmen and the team could be tough. Heser ran well and Meigs had his best race of the year. The varsity girls looked strong, running well together, Wiedemer, Shetley, Musial and Kissner all worked together and looked strong. Courtney is rounding into her best racing at the right time. Paige is just behind from missing so much.I not sure they ever decided what was wrong with her foot.

The varsity boys also looked very strong, top 4 looked good and Sam did a good job with number 5. Strong finish for the regular season getting ready for post season. Nix is real strong and Kubicki is back, the only problem is Jones is sick, he never has gotten over the first round of sickness. Goff is ready to go I can tell.

in meets by coach mike on 14 Oct 2008

Congratulations to the Cats and Lady Cats for an outstanding performance at the Apollo Conference Championships! The Lady Cats were able to pull out a 3rd place finish, we knew Mt. Zion would be good and they were better than good, and the Newton Lady Eagles ran a great race for 2nd. Courtney has 12th overall for the Ladies and continues to have a very good senior season. Ms. Knaak had good race finishing 14th. Alyssa was 18th, Kaity 24th, Tiff 25th, Paige 27th, a hurt Mollie 28th. You picked up valuable points toward the All Sports Trophy. We now need to get ready for the post season, and advance out of the regional. Courtney was 20 seconds faster than the last time we ran this course, Al was over 30 seconds faster, Ch Sea was almost a minute faster.

The young men had their sights set on 1st and raced to get 1st. The battle was tougher than we had thought , Charleston was better than, we knew about, except for JJ, who told me on the bus ride over that Charleston would be the team to beat! JJ knows what is going on! Cory had a great start and a great race, finishing 3rd, Jordan was 4th, to lead the way for us. Finally K was back, battling through illness, finished 10th. Congrad’s to Nix, Jones, and Kubicki for their all conference honors. Goff stepped up for a lucky 13th place finish, followed by Hesser in 14th. Tyler returned to the line up, had a very good start and ran in the 6th spot for us. Clark was our number 7 guy.

Good over all effort by everyone, even the bus driver to get us home, quickly and safe.

I think the Apollo conference is getting a little tired of us on the running side. A couple of the boys teams were making fun of our warm up rituals! We just try to bring some fun and team spirit to our warm ups, you see that from the northern schools with their chanting and cheering before the races. Don’t see a lot of it from the southern schools. Oh well-I enjoy it.

I took our pack time for the boys and inserted it into the Centralia Invite-if we could run the same pack time at Centralia, we can move way up in the standings. Thats what we are hoping, no going to work towards-better pack time. Only problem, no room for error, right now we only have 5 guys. We wouldn’t have Tyler at regional, he has to retake his ACT, maybe someone else will step up!

Overall a very good day-good turn out of our parents, the kids raced very well. Guess what, time to start planning towards post season!

in meets by coach mike on 05 Oct 2008

Its amazing to me that year after year one school can dominate a sport like York Elmhurst. There they were again, front of the race in their white uniforms with green trim. Top two males runners from York. Coach Newton sitting in his chair yelling at his troops.

I thought we raced well, we looked strong, then we got the results and we were 32nd out of 52 or 53 teams.  The girls were like 37 I think out of 42. Once again the girls were packed in tight. Tiffney was our number one for two meets in a row. She ran a decent time of 20:21. Courtney was number 2 for us, followed by Alyssa, Mollie and Paige was back in the line up for her first race in over 3 weeks. The girls looked stronger to me, better finishes, we will have Kaity back next week end and Chelsea, so we should be full strength. Plus Paige should be stronger after a week of practice.

On the boys side-Nix had a great race running number one for us and Jones also raced very well, running our number 2-both their times were the best we have had up there in several years.  I was hoping someone would break under 16 minutes, they were  close, maybe we will get another chance in a few weeks.  Goff and Hesser raced well-Hesser got knocked down, stomped on and spiked, but got up and ran in our top 4. Kubicki was our number 5, he is in rut, struggling with the mental aspect of racing right now. But he is a senior and has been through the struggles before and will snap out of it!

So we move on-this weekend we race at Centralia and then the following Tuesday is our conference meet. So its time to get serious, time to focus.

The trip to Peoria is always special-the kids have a good time, get to spend sometime together. They get to eat at Cheddars, hang out together. Enjoy that 6 hours on the road.

in meets by coach mike on 28 Sep 2008

Well that was a hilly little 5k. Not sure what to think. The girls had a pack time of 42 seconds 1 through 5. Now in most cases thats good, but when your number 1 is 41st, you have a little problem. Also when your freshman that has been running 6th and mostly 7th for you is number 1 that too is also a little problem. I wonder sometimes how important this is to some of them? Do we focus and prepare mentally? Or do we just show up, thinking that we aren’t going to do well, so why not just go through the motions? Lets not push ourselves, lets just get done with this so we can go home! Do we warm up right? Do we even run any of the course to warm up? Or does the coach need to follow you around like in grade school? I’m looking for someone to step up and race, to lead by example in the race! I know some are trying. Do we not work hard enough in practice? Do we need more miles? Do we need more speed? Or do we need more —–? Positives- the cheerleader, with only three workouts, this past week ran number 2 for us, the freshman ran well. Mollie ran without as much pain. Courtney was sick as a dog, but has she been doing anything to make herself better (sickness)? Kaity ‘s problem is showing back up. Alyssa ran a good strong racing starting off and then faded, but you know she was giving all she had. By the way the cheerleader does have a name-Chelsea and the freshman is Tiffany. Right now I predicting a 3rd or 4th place finish at conference and 5th or 6th in the regional, thats not be very positive, but time is running out and the finish line is getting closer each day!

Boys race-split the squad and tried to run two full teams in the varsity and the jv, but that didn’t pan out, we have too many injuries. So we ran 5 in the varsity and 4 in the jv. Nix ran very well, got a very good start and was our number for over half the race, before Jordan caught him. Cory had been getting better each meet. Jordan was under the weather for a couple of days during the week running a slight fever. I like the idea of Nix moving forward. Kubicki had another tough race, he seems to be unable to focus on the task at hand, this is not uncommon with seniors, they have a lot on their plates, all kind of things to worry about, college, ACT scores, girl friends, grades, getting into the college you want. Life is getting ready to be different. Its tough having fun with this sport-you run and you are excepted to run fast. You run over roads, up hills, through creeks, hard dry ground, wet muddy grounds. It hasn’t cooled off yet, so its still hot, of course there is not time outs and no subs-if you are having a bad day, there is no where to hide. Sometimes the fun is the trip home-bus time- time to cut up a little-time to share-time to talk and laugh. We had a very nice trip home-stopped at the food court at Fairview Heights for lunch. That was the bus drivers idea and a good one-NO McDONALD’S! The trip home is a time to bond with your teammates! Back to the race-Thomas also continues to struggle, I know he will come around-he always does. Sam Follett, soccer player, ran his first race of the season, not a good one to start with! But his time was good, 20:23-take almost 30 seconds off for the 3.1 and maybe another 30 or more for the hills, not bad at all. Use Hesser and Clark in the jv race trying to build some confidence for the younger guys, Hesser raced very well, had a bad start but recovered very well to finish 5th overall, would of been 3rd on our varsity-Clark had a good start-faded then came back, finished 21st-they gave 20 medals! Meigs is getting better and will be a solid racer for us in the future years! The day was ok-somewhere different-the drive was easy- the park was very nice, would like to go back and just walk around for a bit sometime and look things over. This week we travel to Peoria for the big invite-hope to put some guys in the top 75 or better-not even sure I’ll have enough girls for a team! May have to have Kirsti Owen run!

in meets by assistant coach on 25 Sep 2008

Here are the directions and a race map for the Hankcock Cross Country Invitational (Jefferson Barracks).

Meet Info and Directions

Race Map

These can also be found on the Meet Directions page. 

in meets by coach mike on 20 Sep 2008

Today was the Olney Invitational. The meet was bigger this year than it has ever been. Why? Two reasons: The Apollo Conference meet will be hosted this year at the College and also Olney will host a regional or maybe its a sectional for class A later this year. So everybody wants to race on the course. This is a very nice meet with close to 27 teams there today. The Lady Rams won the girls side of the meet, while Mater Dei’s boys won on the boys side. Some very good races with the top runners also. Margo from Mt. Vernon was beaten for the first time by a freshman girl from Freeburg, who has a twin that finished 3rd. The boys race was won by Walters from Mt. Vernon out dueling someone that at this moment, I can’t remember who he was or where he was from, because I don’t have the results. Anyway some very good races today. The team results weren’t real close, our girls were 9th and the boys a very good 2nd. The girls need a front runner, Courtney was like 34th, you just can’t do much when your number one is that far back, unless it was the Peoria Invite then that would be ok. But front runners are hard to come by. Plus the ladies are getting better, and we will just have to keep working to get better, hoping a top three, maybe top two finish at conference would be very good for this group. The boys, the top three raced very well, but can do better. The 4 and 5 were too far back, a 1:53 pack time is not good. Jones had a very good race, and Jacob K raced a lot better, Cory had a good race. Goff is still brothered by shin pain, made up a lot of spots but just had to slow of a start. Hesser was in his first real varsity race and got bounced around and did not handle it very well, hopefully he learned something from the race today. Clark ???????????? I don’t know. Top 3 must continue to get better and then the next group must keep moving up.

in meets by coach mike on 15 Sep 2008

Had a very nice picnic hosted by the Jones last Saturday night after the Mt. Vernon meet. Thanks for the  hospitality. Had a very good turn out. The food was good and  people got to meet each other.  This get together is one of the nicer things we do and I really enjoy the chance to see the parents of the athletes.

in meets by coach mike on 14 Sep 2008

Mt. Vernon Rams  invitational-the flighted races-seven different races, starting with your number 7 runner working your way up to the number 1 race.  Had to use Bryce as our number 7 runner, we have several injuries. He did the best he could, but we put a 6 on the score board and we couldn’t recover from that. Bryce will be a good runner, he just needs time to get better and needs to put in some miles in the summer. Musial ran for the girls in the number 7 girls , she had one of the girls better time. Clark and Knaak ran the next race. Both struggled. Chelsey is doing the best she can, she is a cheerleader and just doesn’t get enough time to train, I hope next year, she might be able to run during the summer and build some base. Clark just didn’t have it, he is only a sophomore, the mental part of the game he still needs to work on. He’ll work at it. Number 5 race featured TG, Mr. Goff and Ms Zimmermann. Thomas was all geared up, ready to go and he took off and never looked back-Zim raced well and she keeps getting better. Next race was Peanut butter cup, super freshman, Jacob and Kaity. Jacob ran a heck of a race, when he and the boy from BE took off from the pack, the race was on, only problem neither one of them knew the course that well, the BE kid got off the course and Jacob got back on quicker than he did and won, so that was 2 wins in a row for us. Kissner ran a solid race for the girls. In the number 3 slot was Nix and Shetley, by this time the heat and humidity had really kicked in. Nix raced very well finished 2nd-looked strong. As strong as someone who is 6’2 and weighs 130 can look.  But he did look good.  Shetley battled, she was under the weather a little bit. Next up number 2 race, Kubicki and Owen. Of late Mollie has looked better in practice and has raced better, she had another race with improvement, which is good. Kubicki started out strong and then faulted. He just doesn’t handle the heat and humidity very well. But he knows he needs to be tougher. Race number 1 pitted Jones and Wiedemer as our runners. Jordan settled in second place after hanging with Champbell for while and finished the race in 2nd. Courtney finished with the best time for the girls. She has had a very good season so far, very proud of her.  This type of meet is all about being mentally tough, being ready to race, we were about 50% on that, we need to be better at that.