Varsity Highlights

What a day at the races!  The day dawned lovely, cool and dry, with the sun shining brightly and a light breeze blowing.  The Pioneer Men’s Cross Country team came out to compete at the Gabriel Richard Invitational held at Hudson Mills Metropark.  The men went out with determination, and many gave stellar performances on this exciting day.

Pinckney again took first place scoring 44 points, Plymouth landed the second place slot with 75 points, and Saline earned 99 points for third place.  The Pioneer men scored 101 points, and earned the fourth place position.  This was accomplished with some fantastic runs by our young team.

David Torres once again led the Purple Power with a swift 5k that gave him another personal best performance.  David came in 9th place overall in only 16:43.  David scored 8 points for the team (there was an independent runner who came in 7th).  David has been improving each time out, and his leadership and dedication are evident at every meet.  This takes nine more seconds off his last best time.  Nicely done, David!

Eddie Codrington gave the spectators another vision of speed and tactics, together with teammate Tyler Leach, they stayed up front and managed the traffic nicely.  Eddie gave his trademark kick at the end,  flying to the finish in 17:09, scoring 18 points, and taking nine seconds off his PR.  Tyler was just behind, staying focused and running with intensity.  Tyler’s finish, with 22 points, was 17:19, a whole minute off his time trial time!  You just keep getting faster, guys.

Galen and Costa ran together for this race, encouraging each other by keeping the pace, and both gave personal best runs here today.  Galen was over the line in 17:26, earning 27 points for his team.  That is right in line with his personal best.  Costa had a huge performance here today, and was jubilant crossing the finish line in 17:25, his first time as fourth Varsity runner and lopping over 20 seconds of his last best time.  Galen, just recovering from that pesky virus floating around the school, still gave a tremendous effort and finished in 17:26 (27 points). 

Max Shpilband was sixth varsity runner today, completing the course in 17:58 – not a new PR for Max, but among his best runs this season.  His overall finish was 46th.  Boris Burman had a great day as well, coming in 55th in 18:25, very close to his fastest time this year.  Nice to see the teamwork effort here, men!