**Note, this was supposed to be posted last week. A blog about Forest Park Cross Country Season will come soon.
**This post is written by Colin Donovan
To say that we started off our season well would be an
understatement.
DeSmet Jesuit Cross Country began their season with the
Fleet Feet Cross Country Kickoff at Parkway Central, and they did it in
tremendous fashion.
The JV team started things off with fantastic showings all
around, with Christian Weishaar, Teddy Weishaar, Patrick Sanchez, Kole Wetzler,
Ralph Skitt, Andrew Smith, and Sal Alu scoring. With JV getting the impressive
third place finish, they showed not only the depth of the team, but also
started off the season the way they needed to: by competing.
The Varsity Top-10 followed up JV with an equally impressive
race. Led by Joe Reed, Michael Ruiz del Arbol, Colin Donovan, Tyler O’Connor,
Matt Woodford, Neil Winter, and Chris McNiel, the team received another third
place finish behind the previous Class 3 and Class 4 state champions, Lafayette
and Festus. With a very impressive 1-5 man split of only 36 seconds, the team showed that they could not only run together,
but they could compete together. This was a giant success for the team and a
definite sign of great things to come...
And come they did.
The following race came at the 42nd Annual
Granite City Invitational with three miles. The Varsity team started the day
off this time, and they did it sensationally. Last year at this meet, the
Varsity team could only run six people in the race due to injury, and they
ended up with an average time of 17:15 that gave them an eighth place finish.
Not bad, but the goal for this year was to improve, and we definitely did that.
Running seven runners we improved our
average time to 16:51, and we did it in much worse conditions than we had last
year. Led by Joe Reed, Michael Ruiz del Arbol, Tyler O’Connor, Matt Woodford,
and Neil Winter, the team got second place in a field of 30
teams, and they took home a nice trophy to show for it.
Normally at Granite City, DeSmet gets a chance to show off
their best young prospects in a Freshman and Sophomore B/C race. This team was
made up of Teddy Weishaar, Keegan Callahan, Nick Einig, Joseph Moffat, Tim
Abbenhaus, Nick Riordan, and Henry Gloriod. They knew what time to get to the
meet, and all of them prepared extremely well for it. But the JV team some
attention, too. The JV race was originally scheduled for 10:30, but because of
the heat, it was moved up and combined with the B/C race at 9:30. Nonetheless,
they handled it like champs and dominated alongside their B/C teammates. The
majority of these guys had run better than they had last year despite worse
conditions and a rushed warm up.
In the end, the Granite City Invite was a huge success. It’s
just another big sign of great things to come. Only two meets into the season,
and already we’re experiencing great success. I know that I’m ready and excited
for the rest of the season, and I hope you guys are too.
#gethype
-Colin Donovan
