Re-cap of Big River Early Bird Meet

8/30/08

Men-
I was very pleased with the way the men raced this past weekend. The men competed in a shorter than normal race of 6,000m( 3.7 miles). The course was fairly difficult because of the rolling terrain and the tall, thick grass. The heat and humidity were also a major concern. Of course it’s always nice to get the team and individual victories, but I was even more impressed with the way the guys worked together. Our overall places were- 1, 5, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 22, 26, 37. The race had 117 competitors. Kyle Saginus was the overall champion!! Our top three runners- Kyle Saginus, Brice Cleland, and Nick Szczech stayed together for 4k of the 6k course. They ran smart, under-control, and showed poise when a couple of dreamers took the race out pretty fast. I was also very impressed with Keith Schueller’s performance. Keith is a freshman from Germantown, WI. He ended up just beating out Nick Szczech for the 3rd spot on our team. We raced without two of our top 7 guys- Peter Bolgert, who earned USATF junior All-American honors this past summer and Blake Johnson, who is our top freshman recruit. Blake is from Saline, Michigan. These two athletes will be ready to race the next time we line up to compete. Overall, I am very excited about this group. This was a great way to start the season. It will definitely be a fun year!!

Women-
The women also had a strong start to their season. They also competed in a shorter race- 4,000m. We took three of the top five spots and had our top 7 in the top 16. There were over 140 women in the race. The women also claimed the team victory scoring 30 points. Jayne Grebinski was our top finisher in 3rd place. Anna Weber and Olivia Johnson were the next two across the line for us in 4th and 5th place. Amanda Beggs was our fourth runner finishing in 7th place. We had a very strong pack of four runners that seemed to be controlling the race. It was definitely exciting to watch. This is a very strong group of athletes, but to make it to the national championships, we’ll have to get our 5th runner closer to our 4th. Kristin Pelzel, our fifth runner, was 32 seconds behind Amanda. We’ll need her and her teammates to move up if we hope to be running in Terre Haute in late November. Another impressive performance was that of Sarah Verdoliva. Sarah placed 16th overall with a time of 15:16. This was Sarah’s first cross-country race EVER!! She normally trains with the long sprinters, but she wanted to give cross-country a try in hopes that it would improve her strength for the 800m. We are sure glad she did!! I’m very excited about this group of women. We have front-runners and we have depth. We’ll need to tweak a few things over the next month, but overall I think we are in good shape.