NEW BALANCE INVITE SEPT 19, 2009

NEW BALANCE FESTIVAL of CHAMPIONS 19 SEPTEMBER, 2009 WESTERN OREGON UNIVERSITY On a day that alternated between a misty rain and beautiful sunshine, the Ram men dominated the newly formatted New Balance Festival of Champions at Western Oregon University. In previous years the Festival was a traditional meet; this year it moved to a flighted meet. A true flighted meet pits each team’s #1 runner against only the #1 runners of the other schools, each team’s #2 runner against only the #2 runners, etc… thru the #7 runners. Here the flights were slightly modified with just four races: race one allowed a team’s #7-#12 runners (although only two would score), race two consisted of the #5 & #6 runners, race three - #3 & #4, while race four pitted the top two runners from each team. Team placing was determined by a squad’s top two runners in each of the four flights – so a perfect score would be 12 points. The meet also offered our junior varsity runners a chance to compete, and the Rams chose the 2mile option for the largely freshman group. Joining frosh LELAND BEATLEY, CARL SONNENSCHEIN, and HAYDEN FAWCETT were junior RICK SULLIVAN – coming off a week of illness – and sophomore KIRK GULLIVER in his first cross country race representing the Cardinal and Gold. Kirk’s instructions, given that he is on a very conservative training and racing program due to injury problems over the last few years, was to settle in the lead pack through at least the mile mark. If he felt strong at any point after the mile he had the green light to take the lead and light out for home. Amazingly, the race went to perfection. Kirk did, indeed, settle into the lead pack for the first mile – although it was apparent to anyone who knows Kirk that he was primed early on to burst into the lead and drop the whole group. After a very nice opening mile in the low 5:20s, Kirk did, in fact take the lead one meter beyond the mile mark. Showing great self restraint, he easily accelerated, stringing out the formerly 10 man front group. By 2000m, Kirk had a five meter lead on his nearest pursuer from Rogue River – and that margin changed little all the way through the final mile. With 300m to go, Kirk put the hammer down and, despite a mad rush by his Chieftan opponent, held on for his high school cross country win. His winning time of 10:44 over the 2mile layout was a fantastic start to his sophomore year of competition – and over 35 seconds faster than the 3rd place finisher. Hayden Fawcett, just over a minute back in 11:49, ran another heady race and moved up steadily to finish 15th in the 145 man field. Leland Beatley quickly learned from his too-conservative start in the previous meet and ran a fine 12:24 for 37th place. Not far behind were Rick Sullivan and Carl Sonnenschein in 40th and 42nd place at 12:33 and 12:34. All things considered, a fine start for the Ram men. Given that the varsity athletes had every expectation of competing for the win in varsity flights #1, #2, and #3, race instructions were identical for each set of runners in those races: run with the lead pack through the mile, move together to two miles, and race each other for the win over the final mile. In the “7th man” flight, WARREN DEGENHARDT ’10 found himself just a bit outside the front group, yet improved by two minutes over last year’s mark, finishing 33rd (of 130) in 18:42. Ahead of Warren, TREVOR SCHMIDT ’13, ZACH TEENY ’11, and GREG CRUZ ’11 were racing to perfection – although there was an interloper from Forest Grove looking very strong just ahead of them at two miles. The CC trio bore down on the leader and, despite not quite catching him, got the team off to a fantastic start in the team scoring with their 2-3-4 finish (only the “2-3” would count in the scoring). Cruz led the way at 17:25 – a 46 second improvement over his 2008 effort here, while Teeny was just a few ticks back at 17:33. Schmidt, in his first ever cross country 5km, ran a splendid 17:40; only four freshmen would run faster on the day. While many expected that our group would go 1-2-3 in this race, the Forest Grove runner clearly was not his team’s #7 runner as his 17:12 was FG’s second best time of the day. Regardless, five points in this first flight was a great way to begin the Rams’ defense of their 2008 win here. The #5-#6 flight went exactly as planned for the CC boys as seniors MUSA AHMED and EVERETT STILLEY executed the race strategy perfectly. With 600m to go the two were still running together – and most expected to see Musa pull away. Alas, it was the ever-improving Stilley that came away with his first-ever varsity win, 17:00-17:06, giving the Rams another measly three points in the team scoring. The #3-#4 race was a rerun of the #5-#6 race for the boys of Stark Street. WASIL AHMED ’11 and classmate ANDY BENNISON sat in the pack through the mile, took the lead at about 2 kilos, and raced madly over the final half mile. Ahmed, showing that his time trial victory a week earlier was no fluke, got the win in a fine 16:26 – a 20 second PR and a 36 second improvement over his mark here a year ago. Bennison also PRed at 16:32, 44 seconds ahead of his 2008 effort at NB. Had these two been in the final race of the day, their times would have placed them 9th and 12th. In the last race, seniors PETER SLAUSON and CURRAN CARLILE both ran well, although they were up against the best that any of the 32 competing teams had to offer. Both moved up steadily – as the leaders ran a ferociously fast first mile – to finish in 7th and 10th. Carlile had the Rams’ fastest time of the day at 16:18 while Slauson was just ten seconds back. When all was said and done the Rams had the Team Trophy with 26 points; Skyview of Washington was next at 53. Four Rams were in the top 12 overall (of 306 varsity runners), with two more in the top 31. It was a dominating performance by these young men – and there is certainly still more to come from this group. As usual, schedules and full results can be found at: http://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/School.aspx?SchoolID=227 Hope to see you somewhere soon!