Recap: Last year’s meet at Harrison Lake was a soaker, and this year proved to be cast from the same mold. It was so wet Saturday that the high school meet at Ottawa-Glandorf was cancelled at the last minute over concerns that running on it might cause trouble for a meet scheduled five weeks later (we ran the course anyway).  Despite the rain last year, the middle school course proved a fast one, and that was even more so the case this year.

For the girls’ race, the Lady Vikes had multiple records fall at both the personal and school level.  Kayla finished fourth overall, setting a new 7th Grade and overall Evergreen Middle School record of 13:34 and taking an impressive 46 seconds off her personal record!  Kennedy also set a new 8th Grade record of 13:53, besting her previous school record of 14:02.  Not to be outdone, Jolie took an incredible 4:49 off her PR, Izzy improved by 30 seconds, and Morgan competed in her first race of the season.

On the boys’ side, Owen turned in a great effort in taking over a minute and a half off his PR.  Chris also shaved 22 seconds from his personal best, and Evan turned in his best performance of the season so far.

Here are the results for the Middle School:

What has been a slow and frustrating meet for the high school is clearly not so for the middle school as they had an excellent showing across the board.

Full Event Results are available on Baumspage.

Up Next: Liberty Center Widewater Invitational. Consistently mentioned as a favorite among the Viking runners, this one should be a treat!

Recap: Wet, wet, wet.  In years past, the Archbold meet was always sweatshirt-cold at the start and blazing hot by the end.  Not this year. It was overcast from start to finish, and right on cue the rain started pouring as the Middle School girls kicked off their race.

Kayla and Kennedy again worked together through this race, pacing and pushing each other until the final half mile when Kayla pulled a head to a new personal record time.  Kennedy was only a second behind her season best and was over 40 seconds faster than last year. Izzy also ran really well in her first ever cross country race!

On the boys side, Chris continues to see the results of his hard work over the summer as he set a new personal record and ran over two minutes faster than his time at Archbold last year. Owen just missed his PR by two seconds, and Will turned in another solid effort.

Here are the results for the Middle School:

A very solid outing by our Middle School runners heading into a fun meet next weekend.

Full Event Results are available on Baumspage.

Up Next: The Middle School travels to Harrison Lake State Park for the Fayette Invitational (hopefully with no rain this year!).

Recap: This season features three new invitationals, and Otsego was first on the list. This is a long-established meet featuring a few of our NWOAL teams, so it was a great chance to switch things up from the norm.  From a course standpoint, this meet offered a little of everything: trails, hills, water, open grass.  The only challenge was figuring out the course as it involved multiple loops on two different sides of the course (some parts of which were not very well marked). Despite the challenges the course posed, we still had eight out of the fourteen Viking runners set a new personal record.

For the boys team, the varsity runners finished eighth overall out of eleven teams.  Ben set a new freshman record with his 17th place overall finish, and Alex also set a new PR. In the JV race, all four Viking runners set new personal bests; Gavin and Augie took 2:40 and 1:25 off their PR’s, respectively!

On the girls side, we had a small team this week as several runners were out for the fair or other important events.  Sarah set a new PR with her 19th place finish despite losing several seconds on one of the aforementioned poorly marked spots on the course (she was not alone as Alexis too lost critical time on a course error).  Hannah pushed to better her previous PR that went all the way back to last year’s Archbold meet.

Here are the official results for the High School:

* High School JV Race

Another week, another improvement as a team.  These runners continue to work hard every day, and their work continues to show up on race day.

Full Event Results are available on Baumspage.

Up Next: The high school has a weekend off before heading to Ottawa-Glandorf on 9/17, while the middle school travels to Archbold next Saturday.

Recap: You just never know what to expect in the first meet of the season. You sort of get a feel for how workouts have been going, but at this point in our training cycle it’s normal to feel a bit fatigued as we continue to adjust to increased intensity of the workouts and the start of the school year.  The great thing about the Defiance meet is that the course gives a fairly realistic picture; it’s not terribly fast because of the hills, but it’s also not really a slow course (*cough*Archbold*cough).

With that said, the results from this weekend were excellent. Twelve of our high school runners set a personal record, including nine of the ten men.  Now, the men’s team is young so it’s easy to PR when it’s your first ever high school 5k, but even compared to their middle school times they were significantly improved. For example, Chandler’s split at mile two was 21 seconds faster than his two mile PR from the end of last season.

Ashley pushes to the finish

Thomas looks strong through the first mile

Augie settles in around the mile mark

Other runners watch as Heidi passe them on the way to a strong finish

Katie finishes strong

Alexis finishes up her Defiance run

John and Chan work together to move up

Sarah keeps a steady pace through mile one

Sarah chases down a Montpelier runner in the final sprint

Chan works his way to the finish

The high school men line up to start

Jared guts it out all the way to the finish

Ben fights to pass runners at the end

Alex chases down a Fayette runner at the end of the Defiance race

Gavin works through his first 5k of the season

Trinity works past competing runners in her final kick

Phoenix surges past runners at the end

Trinity starts moving up through the field at the mile mark

Pete keeps up the pace at the mile mark

Ashley and Katie work together through the first mile

To give you an idea of the progress made, consider the following:

• Jared PR’d by 2:14
• John PR’d by 56 seconds
• Pete PR’d by 15 seconds
• Phoenix was just 25 seconds off his PR and 1:09 faster than last year’s Defiance time
• Heidi ran 1:27 faster than her last Defiance race in 2014
• Katie and Tom both took more than 20 seconds off their Park-o-Rama 5k times despite it being a hilly course

The ladies’ team finished 9th overall out of 18 teams, and their team average of 24:42 for the top five runners was 3 seconds faster than the top individual Lady Vike from last season. The men didn’t have enough runners to score last year, but their top 5 average of 21:00 crushed the four-man average of 24:10 from last year’s meet.

Here are the official results for the High School:

The middle school race is a bit different at Defiance. Whereas the high school gets a flat, fast mile to start before heading into the hilly section, the middle school heads straight to the hills.  This makes the impact of “The Hill” at the end of the race that much more significant.  Despite this difference, both Kayla and Owen were able to take time off their PR from last Thursday’s Lake meet, dropping 2 and 38 seconds, respectively.  While neither team had enough to score in the meet, our first three girls finished in the top 15 of the race, and Jolie showed incredible determination in passing several runners coming up that intimidating hill at the end.

Evan rounds the corner for home

Kayla tracks down another runner heading to the final hill

Paige and Kayla celebrate a successful race

Jolie puts in a very strong finish

The middle school team kicks off their race

Owen sprints to pass another runner at the end

Will works hard to finish strong

Kennedy crosses the bridge to the final hill

Kayla turns into the final sprint

Paige crosses the bridge near the end

Kennedy turns the corner as parents and coaches cheer her on

Chris turns the corner to the final stretch

Paige pushes towards the finish line

Here are the official results for the Middle School:

Up Next: The High School travels to the Otsego Invitational at Mary Jane Thurston State Park this Saturday 9/2, and the Middle School has a week off before heading to Archbold on 9/10.

Full Event Results are available on Baumspage.