Varsity Highlights

The weather was warm as the temperature held around 80 degrees for the first Jamboree of the 2011 season.  Some cloud cover gave the runners periods of relief from the sun.  The course has a considerable amount of gently sloping terrain and some flat stretches but the hill must be faced twice, challenging the runners to stay especially strong physically and mentally in the last mile.

At the start, the Pioneer men held a tight group.  At the climb of the first hill, the leaders began to spread out with Saline and Bedford at the front and Galen Burrell taking the lead for Pioneer in 5th place.  Costa Willets followed just a few paces back with Max Shpilband, Dean Brigham and Boris Burman in a tight group behind him.  A bit further behind were Nick Aukerman, Dan Fonte, Mark Flamme and Rob Frakes.  Freshman Jacob Johnson looked strong as he passed runners while heading up the hill.

At the one-mile mark, Galen had dropped to 6th but still led the Pioneer men with Costa, Max, and Dean close on his heels.  Boris dropped back by a bit more.  By mile 2, Galen regained 5th place with Costa and Max seconds behind him.  Now the remaining Pioneers were spreading out with 10 – 15 seconds lapsing between runners.

The men finished strong with Galen taking 5th overall (PR!).  Costa overtook a Dexter runner in the final stretch to nab 15th place while Dean and Max sprinted to the finish to take 20th and 22nd places respectively.  Nick finished under his best time – remarkable considering that he ran this race with a blown out shoe and painful gash in his foot!  Boris took 40th place followed by Dan, Mark, Rob and Jacob.  Overall the Pioneer men secured 4th place in the Jamboree earning 89 points.  Great race against some very tough competition!

JV Highlights

The Pioneer JV team took 3rd place at the Willow Metropark SEC Jamboree.  Grateful for drier conditions than last week, new personal records were achieved by eleven JV runners, shaving an average of nearly one minute off their Kensington race times!  Congratulations to Lucas Arrivo, Will Jibson, Tristan Edwards, Dario Potter, William Yang, David Kellam, Nick Liu, Alex Kim, Maro Roh, Stone Mathers and Cameron McLaren on making these great strides in this race.  Way to push yourselves!

Amidst the swarm of Saline Hornets, David Kellam jumped out front at the gun with a large group of his teammates close behind.  At 3 minutes Saline was leading with nearly 20 runners.  Lucas Arrivo overtook David working the hill and looked very capable.  Will Jibson and Tyler Leach stayed close on Lucas’s heels.  William Yang was looking strong early with Josh Bender just a dozen paces behind.  The Pioneer JV men were pushing themselves as they passed opponents on the first trek up the hill.

At the first mile mark, Lucas continued his lead.  Will, Tyler, Adam Manhiem, and Ancel Kalakailo followed by 2-3 second intervals.  Next we saw Jacob Norton and William Yang pressing forward.  Josh Bender rounded the corner at 6:17 followed by Dario Potter and Tristan Edwards running together with James Oh, Alex Kim and Nick Liu a few steps behind each other.  The rest of the team continued to set personal steady paces for themselves throughout the race.

Lucas led Pioneer in the final stretch taking 17th place, ever striving to catch the leading clump of Saline runners.  Tyler passed every runner he approached and finished with a powerful sprint to take 27th.  Will came in next in 42nd with Adam at his heels in 45th, both men finishing strong in the race.  Jacob, Ancel and Tristan came in close together as the 5th, 6th and 7th place runners for Pioneer’s team.