Recap: The Viking high school runners had a good meet last Saturday and did some solid work. Our strategy for this meet was more about place than time as this course doesn’t usually lend itself to speed despite being mostly flat (there are just enough speed bumps and sharp turns to really disrupt rhythm). With that strategy in view, both the boys and girls teams did well.

The Lady Vikes kicked off the morning shorthanded, with Hannah still out and Kennedy and Katie both at the fair, so there wasn’t a full team on hand from a scoring standpoint. That said, the girls executed the strategy VERY well. Sarah led the girls again, letting the rabbits sprint out quickly before methodically passing them one by one. She crossed the mile mark in sixth place and continued to surge up to challenge the leader by the final half mile before finally securing a strong second place finish. Trin and Ashley mirrored the effort in moving from 27th to 23rd and 39th to 31st, respectively, over the last two miles. Being able to pass runners after the first mile is a sign of strong running and makes a huge difference in the outcome of meets.

For the varsity boys, they followed up with a similar effort. In their case, they had league rival Swanton to compete against and they matched up well. Three of the top five runners fought through the race and came in just ahead of a rival, and our fifth man came in just after one despite struggling with cramping. This is the type of competition that reminds us this is a team sport, and it’s a great example of teamwork in action. From an individual perspective, the boys were led by Kyle Bowser with a strong top 20 finish, but the day belonged to Augie. In this same meet last year, he dropped a significant amount of time off his PR, catapulting him from the JV squad onto varsity for the rest of the season. He followed up this year by taking nearly a full minute off his personal best and breaking 20:00 for the first time. Alex was right on his heels…just five seconds back…and Kevin, Chan, Tommy and Drew all finished within an 36 second span.

In the open race, Kyle Smith had one of the faster opening miles of the day but stepped funny on the way through the water hazard and had to fight through leg pain the rest of the race. He gutted it out, but Evan took advantage and wound up leading the Vikings in the race. Gavin followed up a 31 second PR last week by taking another 27 seconds off this week and running 4:10 faster than Otsego last year. Chris and Nick also improved their times from last week’s meet.

Here are the results for the High School:

Full Event Results are available on Baumspage.

Up Next: The high school team travels to the Tiffin Cross Country Carnival while the middle school competes at the Archbold Invitational.

Recap: You really never know what to expect in the first meet of the year, and this kickoff to the 2017 season was no exception. The Viking Cross Country program came into Defiance with the largest team in recent memory: 35 runners between high school and middle school, including an impressive 16 high school boys. This first meet is always a mixed bag, not only because it’s a challenging course but because it’s so often the first race many of these athletes have ever run. Some runners do surprisingly well, while others turn in times that don’t really reflect their current abilities. Factors behind this can vary from the type of course, to how much they’ve been running over the summer, to just simple inexperience. At the end of the day, it’s just a single race; a benchmark at the start of a long season.

The high school boys kicked off the day with a strong showing, improving on last year’s 16th place team finish out of 17 teams with a 15th place finish out of 20 teams. These results are more impressive when considering the field was much faster and more competitive this year, and the Viking men dropped their top five average from 21:00 to 19:50. The Vikings were led this year by newcomer sophomore Kyle Bowser, followed closely by returning freshman record holder Ben Schwan. Continuing the youth movement on this team were sophomores Alex Majewski and Chandler Ruetz, with new runner Kevin Crisp and veterans Augie Tipping and team captain Tom Pollard rounding out the top seven. Of the nine other runners in the boys race, five were running their first ever high school 5k and six set personal bests.

The high school girls followed up with a very impressive effort, improving from ninth out of 18 teams to eighth out of 19 teams. Junior Sarah Schwan led the Lady Vikes with an eigth place finish in 20:13, taking a remarkable 1:08 off her previous personal best and school record set at last year’s district meet. Kennedy Keller turned in a new freshman record of 21:09 with her 22nd place finish. After missing all of last season with a knee injury, senior Grace Bryson returned to the course already showing the form from late in her 2015 season. Trinity Welch, team captain Katie Fritsch, and Ashley Garlick…all seniors…worked with junior Alexis McCormick to bring the Lady Vikes to within just a few points of rival Archbold, giving a preview of some exciting competition in the coming weeks.

Here are the results for the High School:

For the middle school runners, this meet was a whole new experience. They had their first meet at the Lake Invitational just two days before on a very flat course that provided a great introduction to competitive running, but only three of the twelve (Owen, Jolie and Kayla) had run at Defiance before and experienced the hills and trails common to cross country. Kayla’s experience served her well as she moved up from tenth place at the mile to pass two runners in the final 200 meters on her way to winning the middle school girls race. Newcomers Jocelyn Schuster and Emma Majewski ran well as a duo, coming in close together. Lindy, Jolie, Izzy and Trinity combined to bring the Viking girls an impressive ninth place team finish (ahead of both the Archbold and Wauseon teams).

The middle school boys were led by seventh grader Anderson Tipping with a solid performance. Isaac Overfield and Owen Bryson again worked together to come in in close succession, followed by Carson LeRoux and Brayden Bull. Again, this was a short turnaround and a very challenging course compared to the Lake meet just two days prior. The boys ran better than their 15th place finish would seem to indicate, and we look forward to seeing them compete at Archbold.

Jolie is all smiles coming up “The Hill” at the 2017 meet

Here are the results for the Middle School:

There were a lot of great object lessons in this meet. A few important points can be seen in the finishes of Sarah and Kayla in particular. First, Kayla’s time was nearly minute slower than the Thursday race, a reminder that it’s not always about the time, especially on difficult courses. You run the same course as your competition, and the competitive outcome depends ultimately on place not time. There were actually relatively few PRs set at this meet by experienced runners because it’s not a traditionally fast course. Sarah was an exception to this though; she did focus on place over time, but in so doing actually took an incredible amount of time off her PR. Again, each runner responds differently to each race based on the type of course, where they are in their training cycle, what type of training they’ve done, and several other factors. We train to peak in October, so each race up until that point simply provides lessons and cumulative fitness in support of that plan. This was an excellent first step, and the coaches are excited to see where this season takes us.

-Coach Schwan

Full Event Results are available on Baumspage.

Up Next: The high school travels to Otsego this weekend, while the middle school has the weekend off.  It’s also Fulton County Fair weekend, so good luck to the many Viking runners participating in the fair!