Portage Invitational - 10-8-22

Both teams had a solid performance today with several PR’s recorded.  It was a day that reinforced why I love to coach, and how much I enjoy this team.  In the early morning dark of the bus ride I looked behind me to see a swam of glow sticks silently waving back and forth.  Was this a bus ride or a Rave?  As the varsity boys were doing their drills just before their race, an official drove his golf cart directly at them causing them to swerve.  Sean Pettis (Jr) swerved into Johnny Christensen (Jr) and picked up a nasty spike to the foot, tearing his shoe.  Initially flustered, we had a quick conversation about whether he was going to let it impact his race or not.  He decided it wasn’t and went out and ran a 19 second PR running 16:41 to place 46^th and earn a medal.  Henrik Quist (Sr), Carter Sherman (So), and Blake Taylor (So) all ran PR’s, but were in agreement that they can be faster.  It was cool to watch Johnny and Carter run strong, struggle, then run strong again as they flip flopped positions with each other a couple time during the race.  It was nice to see each be able to recover from a bad patch.  Issac Romero (Fr) ran the strongest final mile of the group, passing 22 in the last mile and finishing as our 5^th man.  The girls demonstrated strong running over the final mile, with almost all of them improving their placing over the last mile.  The biggest PR on the day belonged to Ariana Tanner (Fr), running 1:30 faster than her previous best.  Joelle Patten (Fr), Elise Pfeiffer (Jr), and Rachel Maddox (So) all recorded PRs of 30-50 seconds with a strong last mile.  Linnea Paige (Fr) placed 39^th to earn a medal.  The JV boys put Chase Lowery (Fr) 3^rd, and Gary Springstead (Sr) 18^th in the medals while Brandon Rasmussen (So) recorded a good PR run.  This group is always looking to improve.  They work hard, make errors and learn from them, and are pretty good at honestly assessing their performances. 

The boys placed 12^th and the girls placed 29^th.

Full Results can be found here - https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/206937/results

Coach