With the last 5k race the Saint Ignatius Varsity Cross Country team ran a full 21 days ago at the Woodridge Invitational (look out for a signed 1st place plaque hanging somewhere in the library), exorbitantly fresh legs and a completely flat Madison High School course looked like the perfect set-up for season-best performances at the District Championship Meet.
But none of the top 7 were looking for times on Saturday. The postseason is about the team, and your placement on the team is what matters. Team racing is about picking guys off from teams we need to beat, and finishing in the best place possible.
The team’s first goal this postseason was to win the district as a team. Seeing as the district contains the 4th (Kenston), 7th (‘Cats), and 8th (Mentor) ranked teams in the state, the Wildcats were ready to go all out to secure a win. In the week #8 OATCC Coaches Poll, Kenston was the only team besides 4th-in-the-country St. Xavier to receive a first-place vote. Just last weekend, Mentor’s top 5 runners all finished their conference within 6 seconds of each other, all in the 16:30s. Many people had the Wildcats written down for a 3rd place finish, unable to compete with Kenston’s firepower of a top 3 and Mentor’s consistency. The Wildcats did not care.
At Saturday’s race, Sean Uhran and I, Matt Kelly, knew for our first sub-16 performances were likely due to a fast course, and we both knew that an individual 1st-place finish was possible for either. Not only would low scores simply lower our score, but directly competing with us for the coveted 1-point-spot was Kenston’s blue-haired Dennis Princic, who also wanted to contribute nothing more than 1 to Kenston’s total. If Sean and I went 1-2, we would score 3, and Dennis would also score 3. If Dennis beat us, he would score just 1 to our 5. We thought, in such a tight team race, we would need to be ahead of him and hope the trio of Aidan Monroe, Peter Fitzpatrick, and Connor Geary could put together season-best performances to get a win. The single minute between the race winner’s finish and the last of our finishers contained enough drama for a book.
Well, Dennis edged me out at the line by .01 seconds to earn the individual victory, and Sean followed closely behind me for 3rd. Despite my and Sean’s letdown of a 1-5 point total to start, by the time Kenston’s second man came in, Ignatius was winning 5-8. We now needed our 3-5 to finish it out. Kenston’s third followed right behind their second, and when each team had 3 boys in, Kenston now had tied the score 16-16. Our third and fourth, Aidan Monroe and Peter Fitzpatrick, both beat Kenston’s fourth, and after four, the score was 28-29, Ignatius on top. It came down to the fifth man.
Lo and behold, Connor Geary crossed the line in 16:38 and 19th place, in a nearly-incomprehensible 32 second all-time personal best effort. Kenston’s fifth crossed 5 spots later in 24th. Ignatius finished with 47 points and Kenston ended in 53. Mentor totaled 104, with a 16:40 average and an impressive :16 spread from first-fifth. It took personal-bests from me, Sean, and Connor, a season-best from Peter, and a season-second-best from Aidan to win the race. Team-bests like this indicate that we are peaking at the correct time, the postseason. Before this race, we had only had 3 kids break 17:00 all year! But when it mattered, all 7—yes all 7—broke the barrier.
Our 6 and 7, Alex Paliga and Joseph Maloney, also both ran incredible all-time bests and broke 17:00—for the first time this season for Alex—and first time ever for Joseph.
A little bit of drama unfolded after the race in the individual results. Although I was initially awarded the victory based on the chip timing, video review concluded Dennis’ shoulders had crossed first, and he was awarded a time of 16:00.00 and I received 16:00.01. It was the craziest and tightest finish I have been and likely ever will be a part of and was a lot of fun.
A district title is the first step towards a regional title, and in a state with nationally 4th ranked St. Xavier, our regional meet will likely be the last race of the year we can reasonably look towards with team victory on our minds. Next week, our team will look to win our first regional title since the state championship-year of 2015, where we scored a ridiculous 26 points as a team en route to a state title the next week. Our region is composed of the GlenOak, Madison, and LCCC districts. Our main competition this next weekend will still be Kenston and Mentor, with North Canton Hoover also joining the mix of top teams.
What is interesting about cross country scoring is that although we beat Kenston on Saturday, more teams joining the field means more individuals placed between our spot and Kenston’s, which means that while we could both run as teams in the same order and times as this week, team scoring works in a way that could dramatically change the team results. Our gap ahead of Kenston could balloon, or it could disappear. With only 6 points between us this weekend, it will take another week of incredible personal performances from our boys to win at Boardman, but we are ready. Another week of reduced mileage and snappy workouts will have us ready to roll. Next Saturday at 3 pm we will return to a course all 7 of our boys have run before and know well.