MSU Spartan Invitational

9-13-24

Calm, Low 70s, Sunny

We had 9 athletes earn (coaches rule) the trip to the Spartan invitational, our largest group for a while.  Athletes earn their way to the meet by running 500 (boys)/400 (girls) miles in summer training.

The boys ran in the Bronze division (D2) this year.  The boys had to survive a blazing fast first 1000 as very large group went through at 15 minute pace.  That put a hurting on a lot of athletes.  Carter Sherman (Sr) went through the first mile in 13th, then faded a little to 16^th at the second mile.  He did a great job fighting his way across a gap and then finishing strong in the last 800 to move up to 12^th at the finish.  Similarly, Cole Lowery (Sr) was able to recover after a tough 2^nd mile to finish strong in 44th.  A better placing than he was at the mile mark.  Blake Taylor (Sr) couldn't quite come back as strong on his last mile , but was able to hang on to place 44th.  Issac Romero (Jr) and Chase Lowery (Jr) really felt the effects of the fast start finishing in 9^th and 110th.  The boys finished 9^th of 36 with 306 points.

The girls race also went out very quickly.  While she wasn't happy with her time, I thought Linnea Paige (Jr) ran a great race.  She was 13^th at the mile and finished in 8th.  Not a huge difference in number but she had to work really hard to cover some pretty big open gaps on her own to close up to 8th.  Rachel Maddox (Sr) went through the mile in 68th, faded to 77^th in the 2^nd mile and was able to recover and hand on to that position to finish with a PR.  Kira Manchip (So) went through the mile in 88th, faded to 95^th and came back strong to record a big PR and place 77th.  Rocquel Richards (Jr) was our only runner on the day to move up each mile.  She was 222^nd at the mile, 210^th at the 2, and mover up to 201^st with a great last 400 meters.  She had the guts to start a strong move well before she could see the finish.  With only 4 athletes the girls did not score as a team.

Full results can be found here - https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/236328/info



Coach