We have our first official meet in the books and it was amazing to watch the boys take on the challenge that is the three-ring circus of an Indoor Track Meet.

 

We had some amazing performances, some lessons learned, experience gained, and importantly, we looked like we belonged there. The boys carried themselves well and looked as in control of their situations as any of the JV or varsity athletes they were competing with. Sure, there were height differences, but of the teams entering JV athletes, our squad of only 7s and 8s came in third of the six teams present. Beating other teams is never our goal going into these meets, we know the visiting schools will be bringing nearly nothing but 9th - 12th graders. However, it sure feels good to snag a few wins now and then and show off that we have the strength to pick apart some JV teams.

 

But the more interesting story is the individual achievements. Here are a few links for those of you who love to crunch numbers and sift through data:

Our individual results by event:

The MileStat results for the meet:

 

The Field Events opened the meet, as they always do, and we began the season with a fun mixture of first-timers and veterans taking a crack at the jumping and throwing. The long jump was populated for us by a trio of 7s, two looking to get back in the saddle after a year away from the event since PE, and one contesting this event for the very first time. We had to work out some jitters and "trust our steps" but in the end they were all able to set a first mark for the season. Brennan set a respectable first measured mark with his final attempt and Mason improved on where he left off in 6th Grade, jumping eight inches further than last year. Our goal for this coming weekend is to trust our run-up more and hopefully use more of our jumps setting marks. The more runs we do intentionally and with consistency, the more chances we'll have!

 

The Shot Put in the center of the action saw Everett and Benjamin both set new personal bests from where they left off last season. Everett keeps chipping away at all of his old marks and put his shot over a foot past where he was able to toss it in February. Benjamin had an almost 2 foot improvement and broke 20 feet for the first time! Our time with Coach Wright will be important for these guys to keep the improvement going.

 

Finally in the High Jump, I wish that I had a video of the glee exhibited as Henry sailed over 4' 10" for the first time. He's been eyeing that personal milestone for a while and his hard work has finally paid off! He had some really close attempts at 5'0", and so be sure to watch out for this event over the season now that he and Carter are both knocking at the door of "Elite Performance" status! Coleman also set a personal record, doing his best by an inch (and best in a meet by 2 inches). Mitchell's jump of 4'0" tied his PR - and he had to do it as his opening height!

 

On the track, the majority of the team began the day with the 55m dash - this is not going to be the usual. We are only granted 4 entries per event, something that I can occasionally bend to one or two more. However, it is good to be the host team when a quarter of the team needs to leave early and you can beg for an entire extra heat of nothing but our MS athletes. Because the race is so short, we don't get times on this distance until it is contested in a meet with automatic timing, so for almost everyone, this was their first mark. Any amount of time dropped is celebrated in this unforgivingly short race - so kudos to Noah for shaving off 0.18 seconds from last season and Everett for chopping off over half a second! Luke Hudson had the best premier of the day from our team, breaking 8 on his first attempt. Will Ackerly, one of three eighth-grade JV athletes deserves mention as well as his efforts in the 55 set him as the 4th fastest athlete ever in this event for StC's Middle School. He passed current freshman Victor Olesen to snag that honor and is only one hundredth of a second away from earning a spot on the Top 3 board hanging in Coach Carrier's room (which would be a tie with current UVA Track Athlete Elby Omohundro)! 

 

We had a lone runner in the 1600m this week - and excitingly, Tyler was able to guts his way to a twelve second improvement on his PR in this event. That former PR was itself only about 3 weeks old!

 

The 4x200 was all 7s all the way. For many, this was a brand new event and the first time competing in a relay. We found that running in a relay format feels different than a solo competition. We were able to successfully complete all six of our relay handoffs (unfortunately not true of our JV squad), and will be working on improving the fluidity and speed of those exchanges trying to keep the stick at full speed. Even with some improvements to be made, we had a solid day and three runners even came away with a personal best - Pierce dropped half a second and both Luke Martin & Kyan Patel found a way to shed a second and a half!

 

The best scoring event of the day for us was the 500m Dash. This event has been a bit of our hallmark over the past few years, often being one of our most competitive. Noah has been a good portion of that since he joined the team last season. This meet marked another feather in his cap with his first place finish here, he moved to be the 4th best all-time middle school Saint at this distance. As he takes this spot, he bumps a familiar name off of the top five - his older sibling Jack! Word on the street is that he's gunning for the other twin next, so fair warning to Ian! Speaking of siblings, the Mayers followed up Noah with a convincing one-two punch. Coleman dropped 3 seconds from the Bruner Meet just 3 weeks ago for second place. Meanwhile Benjamin, who missed the Bruner Meet, kicked down his time from last January by 7 seconds and broke the 90-second barrier for the first time. Just on his shoulder was seventh grader, Mason, who also PR'ed by a sliver.

 

The "A-thousand" had two more competitors and two more personal bests. Tyler was back at it again, dropping a second and a half from the time he set just the last time he ran this race. Henry, not content with one PR, beat his time from February by two ticks on the clock to earn his second.

 

300m - 3 competitors - 3 personal bests... illuminati confirmed. Everett had the biggest drop of the day in the 300, hacking 4 seconds off of his previous best. Brennan broke 50 seconds for the first time at the meet, while charging to a 3-second betterment of his best. With his one-second PR, Luke Hudson is now only 1.13 seconds away from "Elite" status in this event, and led the way while breaking the 45 second barrier. 

 

The final solo event of the day was run by special permission. Normally, the 3200m run is off-limits to MS and JV athletes. Because of his talent and predicted time, he earned a place to try out the "2-mile" on the track for the first time. Remember, this is the first time he's ever run this event, but in finishing as well as he did, he earned our only 2 Varsity team points of the day, set himself a NEPR, and was the 10th fastest MS Saint to ever run this event! Congratulations!

 

If you asked the guys who ran the 4x400 how it went, they'd likely tell you, "Not well." There was no PR - several guys were a few seconds off of their best and they had been hoping for better. However, sometimes the win is in the completion and the journey. Firstly, The Completion: we ran against two varsity teams after a JV and a Varsity team couldn't even make it to the line. Simply by finishing the race, we earned our second first place finish in JV competition on the day (Noah's 500 was the other). We won by showing up and got a few points towards the team competition for doing so. Now, The Journey: this race created Coach Cross's favorite moment of the meet - we held on enough that when Benjamin got the baton 20 meters ahead of the charging varsity athletes who were about to lap us, he made the (probably slightly painful, but oh-so-satisfying) decision not to get lapped. 30 seconds of gutsy running later he had achieved what he set out to do crossing the line with a few meters to spare before the big guys finished just after he started our final lap. These little moments are great pieces of competition and memories to take with you.

 

Before we go, there is a fun feature on MileStat that lets you filter athlete rankings by several criteria. It is a bit artificial, but does highlight how fortunate we are to even have this middle school program in the first place. But below are the MileStat Rankings of Seventh and Eighth grade students who compete in Virginia officially in Indoor Track at High School-level FAT timed events this season:

Eighth Grade (VA)

Eighth Grade (USA)

Seventh Grade (VA)

Seventh Grade (USA)

As you can see, there are several familiar names! Congrats to Mason, Noah, Brennan, Mitchell, Tyler, and JV athlete Christian Both on holding top spots in the state currently! Noah, Brennan, & Mason even get top billing in the USA!! Feel free to play around with this tool, and see what else is out there!

 

All-in-all, a pretty solid meet. It was so great, let's do it again this coming weekend!