in meets by coach mike on 30 Sep 2007
The Peoria Invitational is THE Meet of the year for Illinois High School cross country. York Elmhurst brings out the A team, Coach Newton is there sitting on his chair on the picnic table. The meet is set up to be ran just like the state meet. The race is so fast, the first mile is wicked. A young runner can get caught up in the speed of the start. The girls finished 26th out of 43 teams. Our best finisher was Meghan, she ran a great race for us, probably the top finisher for a Salem girl in a long time. Her time of 19:20 was the first time for any of the girls to be under 20 minutes this season. Mollie was just over 20 minutes. The plan had been for Kaity to run with Alyssa for as long as she could. That was a lot of pressure on a sophomore, both of them actually, they handled things very well. Kaity held on until about the last mile. So we are getting somewhere there. If the girls are going to be successful the rest of the way we need the 3,4,5 runners to pick things up. Meghan is looking strong, I still think Mollie will come around, Bolton will be there when needed. Kaity, Aylssa, Paige, Ellie, and Courtney are going to be the key.
The boys were 31st out of 49 teams. I thought we might be better, but in a race like this, you need a front runner, right now we are lacking there. Kubicki ran number 1 for us again with Jordan number 2. Big story might be Nix, he is getting stronger. Shetley raced hard, Goff is moving up toward the front group. Clark the freshman had a nice first varsity race, his 1st mile time is coming down. I’m worried about the mental state of the boys right now. This week will be a big week of practice for us. We just got though homecoming weekend. We need to focus, our most important part of the season is fast approaching us!!!