JV Highlights

The day started out cool and misty, but by late morning, sunshine had warmed the air.  The mist  had long disappeared by the time the Pioneer JV men lined up amidst more than a hundred high school teams for the Nike-Holly Invitational meet in Davisburg, MI.  The men had a great day with cool conditions.  This is a faster course with dry terrain.  The gun sounded and the runners charged out in a wide V formation, narrowing before they ran down toward the stables.  At the start, 15 runners from Plymouth, Catholic Central and Lakeland leapt out toward the bottleneck.  Jacob Johnson shot towards the front of the Pioneer pack, followed closely by Mark Flamme, Lucas Arrivo, Rob Frakes, Dan Fonte and Will Jibson.As the race carried on through the first figure 8 of the course, the men were spreading out but still stayed in groups of 2 or 3.  Jacob was striding comfortably out of the woods in the lead for Pioneer with Lucas 15 paces behind for the last loop.   Next we watched a steady line of Pioneer men emerge from the trees. Dan, Robbie, Mark, Will, and Jake with a few paces between each other.  After the first figure 8 loop, the front runners were trading off from Lakeland, Lake Orion and Detroit Catholic Central, but they were being chased down by Pioneers Lucas, Jacob, Dan, Mark, Rob, and Will.  The course was rolling flat into the woods, then out to a gradual hill that thinned the traffic a bit.  The men ran out into the open towards the finish with a final sprint, and in the last 200-100 meters, lots of passing shuffled the order, and the crowd's cheers carried the guys flying over the finish line.  What a day at the races!  Many of the guys flourished under the excitement of race day and carved seconds and even minutes off their last best time.  Look at all those PRs!!  Lucas led his team across the finish line and broke his own best time.  Congratulations, Lucas! Lucas came in 20th overall and clocked in at 18:17.  Right on his heels in 21st place was Jacob Johnson in 18:18, slicing more than a minute from his time.  Well Done, Jacob!  It's great to see this talent and focus in the freshman ranks.  Next in were Rob and Dan; both made it to the top 30 in this event, way to go!  A warm cheer of congratulations to the guys who took big chunks of time off their last best race, these guys bettered their times by a minute or more!  Very good progress, keep it up, men!  WilliamYang (59.9), Dario Potter (56.7), Jackson Hall (1:30), Stone Mathers (56.8) and  Cameron McLaren (1:32) Wow. Take a look at the results tables to see the improvement and you'll be proud of this team!