The team has gotten more competitive this year. In every meet, the average times of our top 5 runners in each division (boys varsity, girls varsity, boys JV, and girls JV) have improed. Importantly, over half the team set new PRs at our most recnt race – the Sharptop Invitational. That bodes well for continues improvement at the area championship meet on October 29.
We had our second PR party of the year as we took advantage of cool, overcast conditions and a flattish course to have our best day of the season.
Huge kudos to Maxine Peterson, who smashed her own MVPS XC record by posting a time of 20:02 and placing 6th overall out of 197 varsity girl runners.
Team summary at Sharptop:
- Top 5 Varsity Boys 18:59; faster by 48 seconds versus 2015
- Top 5 Varsity Girls 23:50; faster by 4 seconds versus 2015
- Top 5 JV Boys 20:31; faster by 1 minute and 4 seconds versus 2015
- Top 5 JV Girls 27:42; faster by 1 minute and 50 seconds versus 2015
Seth Morrill, Maclean Peterson, Nick Pierce, Kippy Ngeny, and Alston Schmelzer were the top 5 varsity boys, and they are the first MVPS squad in history to post an average time below 19 minutes. The fact that this was done without Chris Smith, who was nursing an injury, is remarkable.
Maxine Peterson, Josie Meade, Nina Toller, Daniela Jimenez, and Sarah Sims were the top 5 JV girls. The Sharptop meet team results and individual runner results are here, and a meet summary and commentary is here.
25 of our 47 high school runners ran PRs this week – an outstanding performance. James Robison, Will Moorman, and Oliver Vanjaria cut their PRs by 3:00, 2:11, and 2:00 minutes respectively. This was the meet where the runners in the “middle of the pack” showed the greatest improvement for MVPS. I also want to note that Robert Stinnett, Spencer Lucas, Ashley Hall and Elizabeth McGinness made their varsity debut for the 2016 season at this meet, and each runner responded by posting a PR (Spencer actually tied his prior PR).
Also, 8th graders Eleanor Maderra (26:29) and Susanna Soelberg (27:53) debuted in the JV race. Eleanor’s time beat 50% and Susanna’s time beat 36% of the 195 runner field in the girls JV race – well done!
