Varsity highlights

The Pioneer Varsity finally ran under good race conditions - and finally showed some of their immense potential. Though the team finished ninth in a competition that was very tightly bunched among the top teams, every runner who recorded a time ran a season-best race. Unfortunately, Morty Stensones-Fornaess tripped at the 1 1/4 mark, hurt his ankle, and was unable to finish. If Morty had been able to run a sub-17 minute time, as appeared likely, Pioneer might have finished substantially higher.

Kevin Goehring had a PR for the second straight race with a 17:04 and a 22nd place finish, and Takashi Gould improved by more than a minute from his last race and finished with an all-time best 17:05 in 23rd place. Jeff Hubbard (17:39), Soren Berg (17:44), and Kyle Kulseth (17:44) finished in a pack behind them in 46th, 49th, and 50th place, respectively, to round out the scoring. Walker Rutter-Bowman looked to have held onto the 7th Varsity spot with a personal best 18:24, for 77th place.

Varsity team results

Team                     Points
1. Traverse City Central  112
2. Saline                 115
3. Traverse City West     122
4. Milford                123
5. Grand Blanc            128
6. White Lake Lakeland    130
7. Sterling Heights       161
8. Portage Northern       178
9. Ann Arbor Pioneer      190
total of 17 teams

Pioneer varsity runners

Last Name               First      Place       Time
Goehring                Kevin         22       17:04 PR!  (-21)
Gould                   Takashi       23       17:05 PR!  (-13)
Hubbard                 Jeff          46       17:39
Berg                    Soren         49       17:44 
Kulseth                 Kyle          50       17:44 PR!  (-10)
Rutter-Bowman           Walker        77       18:24 PR!  (-22)
Weather: 66, sunny, course a little soft

Junior varsity highlights

The depth of this team was demonstrated in the JV race, which Pioneer thoroughly dominated. Its top five runners finished 3rd, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 14th for a phenomenally low score of 38.

Though the heavy rain miraculously subsided at the start of the race and then picked up again immediately afterward, it was warm and humid during the race and the course was muddy - yet all but two runners ran season-best times. This was an excellent performance by the entire Junior Varsity team.

Satish Mohan (18:31) finished first for Pioneer, Dan Moyer (18:39) edged Sam Milgrom (18:40) at the finish for second, and Johannes Widmalm (18:43) was not too far behind in fourth. First year senior and fifth Pioneer finisher Gabe Velasquez (19:06) continued to come on strong, and Eric Anderson (19:08) kept his streak as the freshman class leader intact. Other notable freshman performances included Paul Corbett's 1:30 improvement to 19:38 and John Boonin's 1:09 leap to 20:58.

Last Name        First Name   Place     Time
Mohan            Sathish       3        18:31 PR!  (-27)
Moyer            Dan           6        18:39 PR!  (-05)
Milgrom          Sam           7        18:40
Widmalm          Johannes      8        18:43 PR!  (-36)
Velasquez        Gabe         14        19:06 PR!  (-23)
Anderson         Eric         16        19:08 PR!  (-19)
Wilkinson        Nick         19        19:11 
Burghardt        Langdon      24        19:30 PR!  (-05)
Corbett          Paul         28        19:38 PR!  (-1:30)
Totsuka          Hiro         31        19:48 PR!  (-49)
Antonuk          Mark         34        20:05 PR!  (-14)
Lyjak            Andrew       46        20:19 PR!  (-28)
Fisher           Adam         48        20:21 PR!  (-37)
Wickstrom        Nick         61        20:50 PR!  (-17)
Nao              Jeff         64        20:55
Boonin           John         68        20:58 PR!  (-1:09)
Johnson          Greg         72        21:05 PR!  (-04)
Decker           JP           92        21:46 PR!  (-02)
White            Dale        100        22:16 
Zhang            Dan         110        23:08 PR!  (-28)
Holmes           Jake        114        23:17
Kimeldorf        Paul        119        23:33 PR!  (-11)
Marlatt          Craig       126        23:59 
Heibel           Mike        130        24:36

Final notes

The next race is the SEC Jamboree #2, hosted by Temperance Bedford. Pioneer has never run a race there, and not much is known about the course. Bedford is in a very flat area, so there shouldn't be any big hills on the course.

Randy Milgrom wrote this report. The team standings at Jackson came from D1CCfan on the Mlive cross country forum.

PR! - new personal record, refers to all-time PR, not just the best time of the season