We enjoyed a mixed day of results, unusual cross country setting (shortened course), and lots of fun times and good food at the Orange County Championships on Saturday.

Check out the photos (click the XC Photos link).

REVIEW:  I want to express my appreciation to our athletes and their parents for the efforts and support of the cross country activities thus far this season.  The athletes have been working very hard and they have tried to do every thing the coaches have asked them to do.  The parents have gone way out of their way to be helpful and supportive of every activity planned for our team.  Was that a great spread or what for our picnic??   It is a privilege to be associated with such a special group of families.

Hard to put numbers to our performances this week due to the fact that the course was shortened.  I supported taking out the dirt hill (the safety of the athletes would have been compromised if they were to run the muddy and slippery hill), but I felt the meet management should have made an effort to make the course as close to 3.0 miles as possible.  It was pretty easily doable in my opinion.  So for this year, we cannot compare our team’s performances to past teams.  The results we can discuss are:

1)  The boys’ varsity won their race and ended up as the #10 team in Orange County.  This is a great achievement for the team and one that has not happened that often for the boys.  Our team gap was 40 seconds which is pretty good considering how well Shane ran up front.  All of our boys ran strong second half of the race (testament to how hard they have been working) and  Shane, Jordan, Dillon, Derrick, and Ryan passed a lot of runners the last half of the race.

I felt though us finishing close to each other was due to how similar our talents are than by us executing our race plan.  We will become even a better team if we really embrace the group run.  I wanted to see more of an effort to establish the group in the race and then move together through the crowd.  If we had run this way, Ryan, Derrick, and Dillon would be a lot closer to Jordan and, in turn, closer to Shane.  We are peaking into a really good team and one that has the chance to go to CIF and maybe the State.  We all can benefit from the group being formed and working together in the race so that we can achieve our goals.  Let’s embrace this idea more enthusiastically.

2)  Our girls finished out of the top ten (13th) for first time since 1996 but we did beat Northwood and El Toro from our league, and Irvine and University from our City.  On top of that, when we beat Northwood, we should retain our CIF rank and therefore keep our chances alive that we will earn one of the at-large entries to the CIF meet.  Christine repeated as the County champ (first time this has happened since 2001 or so) as she won by 58 seconds over second place.

Our girls ran better this week than last week but still not at our potential level.  It seems that we are struggling with the race thing.  We are practicing better than last year but we have not hit our stride as a team yet.  Part of this has been physical but most of it is mental.  The aggressiveness that has been the trademark of our team and the runners that ran for us last year is not there yet.  We had aggressiveness from Brooke and Kayla (they were running 3 & 4 for most of the race for our team) but our other runners were too far back for most of the race.  If you fall far behind after the first half mile, it is hard to make that up on talented runners.  I want to challenge our returning runners to get back up to the level they were last year and to remember how tired they must be at the end of the race.  I did not see all of our runners exhausted at the end of the race but I saw a lot of the other runners in the race exhausted.  We are a good team and one that deserves to be in the CIF finals and in the State meet.  Both of these goals are still possible.  We simply have to execute our race plan better.

Congratulations to the All-County athletes for this year:  Christine Babcock (first team), Dillon Scott (2nd team just 1 second out of the first team), Shane Berglas (2nd team), and Derrick Fleming (2nd team).

ATHLETES OF THE WEEK:  Shane Berglas led the boys to the victory.  Christine Babcock repeated as the County Individual Champion.

WEEKLY SCHEDULE:

1)  Jaguar Invitational at Kit Carson Park on Friday, October 19, 2007.   (WHS to 405 South to 5 South to Vista Way exit (#51B) and merge onto 78 East to 15 South to Via Rancho Parkway exit.  Turn right on W. Via Rancho Pkwy.  This street becomes Bear Valley Pkwy South.  You should see the Park.)

2)  Race Schedule is:

• 2:00pm - JV Boys
• 2:25pm - JV Girls
• 2:50pm - Frosh/Soph Boys
• 3:15pm - Varsity Girls
• 3:40pm - Varsity Boys

3)  The bus will leave at 11:30am.  You will be dismissed from your 4th period class.  Bring your lunch and drink to have on the bus.

4)  We will have the opportunity to compete against schools from San Diego County mainly in this meet on a hilly course.  It should turn out to be a fun meet.  We will need strong performances by the varsity teams to ensure our rankings.  We must be ranked in the top ten two of the last three weeks of the season to earn the at-large entry.

5)  Future dates to remember:

• Apache (Arcadia Invitational):  Next Thursday, October 25th at Arcadia Park in Arcadia
• Saturday, October 25th workout for the League Finals at 9:00am at WHS
• League Finals are on Friday, November 2nd at Irvine Regional Park at 1:00pm
• CIF practice on Saturday, November 3rd at 9:00am

***  You have to risk failing in a huge way in order to accomplish great successes.

***  “To give anything less than your best is to waste the gift”