Varsity highlights
The Pioneer varsity cross country team got off to a very promising
start to the 2003 season at the highly competitive Brother Rice
Invitational. Placing 5th out of 24 teams, Pioneer showed that it is
clearly capable of competing with the state's top teams - though
Saline's "A" team, as well as a few other key competitors, did not
make an appearance at this meet.
Leading the way for Pioneer was junior Morty Stensones-Fornaess
(16:50), senior Jeff Hubbard (16:51), and junior Takashi Gould
(17:15). Their 9th, 10th, and 17th place finish was not only
Pioneer's best 1-2-3 Brother Rice Invitational showing in years but
it also easily constituted the top trio of finishers for any team in
this year's meet. Pioneer has not had even one runner run under 17
minutes on this difficult course in recent memory, and this year it
had two. Junior Kyle Kulseth, who was projected as Pioneer's fourth
fastest runner in this race, suffered a severe asthma attack at the
one-mile mark and was unable to finish the race. Had he run roughly
as forecast, Pioneer might have come in as high as second in this
race, since only thirteen points separated it from second place
Traverse City Central.
Though this is only the first race in a long
season, this team's potential is clear. If the top triumvirate of
Stensones-Fornaess/Hubbard/Gould can continue its strong showing, and
the team can find strong and consistent 4-5 men to complement them,
Pioneer should be able to accomplish some remarkable things this
season.
Pioneer Varsity Runners:
Last Name Place Time
Stensones-Fornaess, Morty 9 16:50.57
Hubbard, Jeff 10 16:51.03 PR! (-18)
Gould, Takashi 17 17:15.21
Burghardt, Lang 68 18:27.25
Delphonse-Widmalm, Johannes 74 18:30.77 PR! (-13)
Milgrom, Sam 112 19:06.96
Kulseth, Kyle DNF
Junior varsity highlights
The Junior Varsity runners also had a very impressive showing.
Though team results are not officially scored in this race, Pioneer's
top five runners - Senior Dan Moyer (18:37), sophomore Eric Anderson
(18:38), junior Andrew Lyjack (18:49), Senior Hiro Totsuka (18:51),
and sophomore Mark Antonuk (18:53) - not only all had notable sub-19
minute times but they all also appeared to finish among the top 40 or
so runners in the entire race - a likely top three, if not winning,
effort. Besides these five, Craig Marlatt also ran an extremely
strong race at 19:20, beating his fastest time from last year by a
whopping 1:15.
The leading freshman runner was Austin Taylor with a remarkable
sub-20 minute time of 19:59, and Jon Voiles (20:38) and Tyler Vane
(20:48) also had very strong freshman debuts. In all, the team
showed great effort and depth and performed extremely well -
especially for a seasoning-opening meet on a relatively difficult
course (though the weather was nearly perfect for a race, or just
about anything else!).
And now, in what has become a web site tradition, a few words of
encouragement. For some of our first-time runners (and others) who
may well have felt this race was, at best, an unpleasant experience,
it gets better from here. The Kensington course is more difficult
than most, and the size of the meet can be intimidating. Many of you
will get PRs in your next race. Don't stop now - in many ways the
most difficult part is already over.