Sunday, August 29, 2010

XC Update #1 - Grass Relays

Darts -
The season is officially under way. It was great to have so many of you at the Grass Relays on Saturday (we had 79 race - the most ever). Watching the races yesterday, I really liked the efforts that I saw. I thought we ran well together in the JV races, and I thought we had some solid performances from the varsity runners as well. I think most importantly, we started to learn how to race. It is sometimes difficult to shift back into racing mode, and I think race #2 at Layton Park on Wednesday, when we get to race in packs, will show us even better results. After looking at the results from yesterday, I was pleased with many of your times and I also saw that a few of you are probably disappointed in what your outcome was. I will repeat what I said to many of you yesterday - it is only one race. We have many more to come - some will be good, some may not be so good. The important thing is to stay positive and patient, learn from your mistakes, and keep moving forward. I thought yesterday some of you started out too fast, some of you started out too scared, some of you settled too much on the 2nd mile, and some of you weren't as prepared as could be. There were some good races, but I didn't think anyone ran a "perfect" race. That is to be expected. It was the first race of the year, and I hope that you can learn from yesterday, but I don't want anyone putting too much weight on just one race. For this next race, try not to be as nervous. Try having fun and racing a little more relaxed. The teams we will see on Wednesday are the teams in our region.
Don't get me wrong - Saturday was definitely not bad - we actually were incredibly impressive, I just think we can do even better as we move along. On the girls side, our varsity group won the meet by over 2:00. We beat some teams that I thought would be a lot closer to us. And those teams are going to be coming after us throughout the season. Anni got a quote in the paper saying how we like to run in packs - I really liked that quote and I think we are even stronger when we get to run together. Shea was the overall fastest girl of the day running 12:23 - it was pretty cool for her to win her first ever cross country race as a Dart. Meghan was 6th overall and the 3rd fastest from 5A. The JV girls would have been first place if the 2 JV races were combined - we would have just edged out Park City for the top JV team of the day. If our 2nd 5 girls (Anna, Joanna, Becca, Janice, and Nalany) had run their times in the varsity race, they would have finished 10th out of 35 teams. We are showing some great depth. I also liked what I saw from many of our new runners.
For the boys, we ran our fastest time ever for the relay, and yet I know they were not completely satisfied. We were happy with 2nd place, of course, but we know we can run faster times. The hard work will pay off - all I can tell you is to keep believing. Our time of 54:33 breaks our record from 2006 (54:38). Perhaps even more impressive is that our top 5 boys in the JV race (Matt, Logan, Adam, Matt, and Skylar) would have finished 3rd to AF and our own varsity if they were in the varsity race. Their combined time of 55:16 would have beat 3rd place (Bingham) by :40. And our 3rd set of 5 runners (Spencer, Alex, Jackson, Zach, and James) would have been 5th place in the varsity race with 56:35 (4th best from 5A). I cannot believe the depth we have. Our boys who ran in the 11:30 range (Taylor 11:27, Colton 11:35, Austin 11:36, Ryan 11:39) would have been the number 1 or 2 runner on 28 teams, and would have been varsity on all but 2 teams. There are teams who would kill to have our #15-21 boys as their varsity team. It is sometimes difficult to be part of a team with great depth because you might not get the opportunities to run varsity that you would on another team - but I hope you know that you are still a big part of our TEAM and the successes that we have as a Varsity and JV. Combining both JV races together, we had the #1 JV team in the meet - another goal of ours this year is to go undefeated as a JV team.
Overall I am very excited about yesterday - mostly because we performed well, but we have even more in us. Keep up the good work. Stay focused and energetic.

Here are the results from our TEAM - full results can eventually be found at http://sites.google.com/site/timomostert/americanforkgrassrelays

Girls -
12:23 Shea Martinez
12:44 Meghan Hedquist
13:02 Anni Andersen
13:14 Tessa Brown
13:19 Abby Frodsham
13:29 Anna Ward
13:31 Joanna Boyd
13:40 Becca Albrechtsen
13:42 Janice Hartvigsen
13:44 Nalany Resek
13:58 Brooke Gutzwiller
14:01 Madi Holt
14:11 Tracey Munson
14:18 Danna Stuart
14:23 Emily Hammond
14:28 Jessica Paget
14:37 Madie McCleary
14:39 Karalilne Vandemerwe
14:55 Julia Anderson
14:55 Liz Ashby
14:57 Ashley Tyndall
15:02 Whitney Williams
15:21 Kayla Sagers
15:26 Mikell Wood
15:35 Sadie Hutchinson
15:56 Michaela Uresk
16:18 Chelsea Howard
16:33 Adrienne Luddington
16:33 Katie Seljaas

Boys -
10:50 Austin Neuner
10:50 Preston Johnson
10:54 Matt Munns
10:55 Brad Nye
10:58 Joe White
11:00 Brayden Cromar
11:02 Logan Wood
11:03 Adam Mathias
11:05 Matt Swanson
11:12 Skylar Williams
11:13 Spencer Jones
11:15 Alex Hedquist
11:19 Jackson Sagers
11:21 Zach Schofield
11:27 James Stenquist
11:27 Taylor Goldsberry
11:35 Colton Cottrell
11:36 Austin Allred
11:39 Ryan Lee
11:51 Seth Thompson
11:55 Keigunn Kunz
11:56 Kaden Gilchrist
11:59 Nate Lee
12:15 Phillip Baker
12:17 Brad Fry
12:19 Andrew Aposhian
12:22 Curtis Knight
12:34 Jed Brough
12:35 Nelson Davis
12:39 Tommy Moncur
12:44 Ethan Stuart
12:49 Joseph Bailey
13:00 Devin Vance
13:14 Rex Sumsion
13:18 Clayton Swenson
13:23 Trevor Fry
13:27 Isaac Clouse
13:28 Alex White
13:33 Nick Mason
13:36 Kyle Storey
13:38 Bryce Stephens
13:41 Collin Pace
13:56 Andrew Michaelis
14:08 Michael Foote
14:13 Dan Wybrow
14:13 James Nicholas
14:30 Devin Farnsworth
14:51 Kimball Potter
16:18 Mark Lindstrom
16:31 Nathaniel Quigley

Coming Up:

Monday -
We are doing mile repeats at the Lagoon Trails - plan on feeling good and running fast. Prepare by hydrating and eating a good lunch. 9th graders from Farmington should change at the Junior High and meet us at the trailhead.

Wednesday -
Pre-Region Meet at Layton Park. The bus will leave Davis at 2:00pm. You will be excused from your 8th period at 1:45. If any parents want to bring popsicles for after the race, let me know - I am sure the kids will eat them. The schedule will be as follows:
Boys JV - 3:30
All Girls - 3:50
Boys Varsity - 4:10 - We are running our top 12 from grass relays: Austin, Preston, Matt M., Brad, Joe, Brayden, Logan, Adam M., Matt S., Skylar, Spencer, Alex. We will be scoring it like a dual meet - Seniors vs. the others (Grass Relays would have been Seniors - 26, Underclassmen - 29). We will do the same thing in the Boys JV race (Grass Relays would have been Seniors - 28, Underclassmen - 27).

Parent's Night -
Thursday Night at 6:30pm in the cafeteria at Davis High School - plan on just under 1 hour. We will have a guest speaker and I will be sharing some information about cross country with your parents. We would like everyone and their parents to come.

Friday Night -
We are going to do a TEAM pasta dinner at the Frodsham's at 6:00pm. I will get you more information this week. If there are any parents who would like to help with the dinner - could you please contact me. We will need people to bring salads and breadsticks. We will plan on cooking the pasta and the sauce at the Frodsham's house.

BYU (Saturday, Sept 4th) -
We will meet at the school at 6:30am - it will give us plenty of time to not be rushed for the first set of races. There are collegiate races at the meet as well. We will probably not be home until 2:30 pm. We will have a TEAM vote to see if we want to stop somewhere for lunch on the way home, in which case you will need to bring a little money. We will decide who to run in the varsity race after Wednesday.
9:00am - Freshman/Sophomore Boys
9:30am - Freshman/Sophomore Girls
9:55 - JV Boys
10:15 - JV Girls
11:10 - Varsity Girls
12:05 Varsity Boys

Athletes of the Week - Matt Munns, Taylor Goldsberry, Whitney Williams, Anna Ward

Bob Firman - Most of the surveys got turned in, and I will know in the next few days if we are approved for the trip. I will be making invitations for Bob Firman sometime in the next week or so. I need to know ASAP if you cannot go. The trip is on September 24-25. It will cost $100. We will be taking a charter bus, staying one night in Boise, and coming back on Saturday night around 7:00 pm. The main conflict is the Homecoming Dance. We will talk in the meeting on Monday about what your options are. If you choose not to go, I really need to know so that I can invite people who do want to go.

Thanks for your hard work and for making DXC what it is . . .
Coach Talley

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Tuesday, August 24, 2010