2019 Centerville SNL Approved Teams Final List and Championship Race Teams

 
Race Assignments for Saturday:
SNL Race AssignmentsList of Teams
It looks like a solid field. The individual entries look nearly as intriguing as the teams entered.

I noticed that Lakota West boys only has one running. I assume that individual is Zach Beneteau. West has a pretty solid team this year. I would like to seen their whole side run. It also looks like Nathan Moore will be running as Lake only has one entered.

In the girls' race it would have been nice to see Beavercreek run. They'll be running in Rochester, NY the following week at the McQuaid Invite so that is why I assume that they're sitting out. Individually, Princeton has one entry I am assuming that is Maria Kaylor. She has been running well after some injury issues and seems to be finding her form. It appears that Toledo NDA's Lauren Mick will also be running as an individual. Ursuline has two individuals entered so that is probably Felicia Krekeler and Hannah Doerger.

I'm sure that there are some other really good individuals entered but these athletes stood out to me as they are all running really well this year.
 
I also noticed that Catholic Central has two running. If that is Springfield CC that means that Addie Engel will probably be running. She went 17:26 at Cedarville last weekend to win by more than a minute. That is beyond impressive on that course and at this point in the season. I would not be surprised if that performance bettered or was close to Taylor Ewert's course record. I know Ewert has the course record but am unsure of what it is.
 
I also noticed that Catholic Central has two running. If that is Springfield CC that means that Addie Engel will probably be running. She went 17:26 at Cedarville last weekend to win by more than a minute. That is beyond impressive on that course and at this point in the season. I would not be surprised if that performance bettered or was close to Taylor Ewert's course record. I know Ewert has the course record but am unsure of what it is.

17:06 Morgan Gigandet from Troy in 2017- state champion- Course Record
17:08 Taylor Ewert Beavercreek 2018- state champion
17:13 India Johnson HD 2016- state champion
17:33 Lainey Studebaker 2015- state champion
*18 girls have broken 18:00 the last 3 years on this course.

The last 4 winners of this race were state champions.
The last 3 winners of this race were also state champions and NXN qualifiers.

Engel can run fast on this course. The weather will play a vital role in the times. The ground is hard as a rock right now. Hence the fast times at Cedarville last week too. When the ground is hard and the temperatures are in the 60's fast times are easier to run. Cedarville was ideal temperatures with an overcast that early in the morning.

I agree the much-anticipated showdown between Engel and Ewert will not happen this year. Maybe at NXN or Footlocker? Engel did not run either race last year. More than likely Ewert will race into December so she is limiting her racing early in the season.

I would also be willing to see if Emma Bucher runs better than last weekend at MSU. If Bucher rebounds she could possibly run with Engel and both ladies could go under 17:00 barrier.

Another good matchup is Gracie Hartman from Oakwood. 2 time state champion in track. Can she race the big dawgs in D1?

Granville, Oakwood, Hilliard Davidson, Lexington and Centerville all should vie for the girl's team title.
 
The Championship races should be fantastic. If I counted correctly, I see 11 state ranked boys teams and 18 state ranked girls teams in the championship fields, plus a few good out-of-state teams (Northville Mi is usually a strong team.). This meet may inform us as to some of the contenders and pretenders (at least as of Sept. 21). Additionally, if the weather cools enough as the evening goes on, times could be other worldly (I know that times are secondary to head-to-head competition in XC, but it would be exciting to have both in one night!).
 
17:06 Morgan Gigandet from Troy in 2017- state champion- Course Record
17:08 Taylor Ewert Beavercreek 2018- state champion
17:13 India Johnson HD 2016- state champion
17:33 Lainey Studebaker 2015- state champion
*18 girls have broken 18:00 the last 3 years on this course.
I was unsure if you posted the times above in response to me wondering about Engel's time at Cedarville. I actually had to reread your post to realize that the times are for the Centerville SNL course. Anyway, I found the fastest times at Cedarville through 2018. When updated it appears that Engel's time did not best Ewert's course record of 17:14. It looks like she now has the #2 time all-time on the Cedarville course. Here are the top 10 times:

High School Girls 5K Top 25 (thru 2018)
1. Taylor Ewert Beavercreek 17:14.0 10/20/18
2. Morgan Gigandet Troy 17:27.6 10/21/17
3. Lindsey Coffin Springboro 17:34.2 10/21/17
4. Faith Duncan Lebanon 17:35.5 10/21/17
5. Taylor Ewert Beavercreek 17:50.5 10/21/17
6. Amanda Burger Lakota West 18:04.0 9/16/06
7. Lindsey Coffin Springboro 18:10.4 9/16/17
8. Zoe Chappelle Springboro 18:18.7 10/21/17
9. Grace Hartman Oakwood 18:23.0 10/20/18
10. Audrey DeSantis Springfield Shawnee 18:30.9 10/20/18

I noticed that Lebanon is also at SNL. Faith Duncan has been running well in this, her junior year. For that 17:35 time noted above for the Cedarville course she was only a frosh. She has run 17:55ish this year and looks to be regaining the form of her freshman year. Faith's brother, Sam, a senior at Lebanon, is also running well this season and I would assume is in the boys' race.
 
I am not a fan of having kids not run as a team when they have a team. Plenty of time for that at the Regional, State and after.

I have mixed feelings about this. As a general rule, I agree. I think the TEAM should be valued as much as possible. On the flip side, our responsibility as coaches is to prepare each of our athletes for success, which means putting elite kids in elite settings. For a true state-podium caliber kid, this is one of those settings.

I guess I feel like as long as it is just an occassional thing and not every week, it can be ok.
 
I am not a fan of having kids not run as a team when they have a team. Plenty of time for that at the Regional, State and after.

I agree on some parts to this statement. There needs to be a purpose and reasoning behind running as an individual.

For instance, Springfield Catholic Central- one girl at 17:26 and the rest of the team....

In a large competitive race the purpose for her to race in D1 would be to get ready for post-season, NIKE and Footlocker. Her team would be dead last by a large margin. Let them race in the D2/D3 races. Let them be successful and at the same time push the top kid to be successful
 
I agree on some parts to this statement. There needs to be a purpose and reasoning behind running as an individual.

For instance, Springfield Catholic Central- one girl at 17:26 and the rest of the team....

In a large competitive race the purpose for her to race in D1 would be to get ready for post-season, NIKE and Footlocker. Her team would be dead last by a large margin. Let them race in the D2/D3 races. Let them be successful and at the same time push the top kid to be successful
There are only her and her twin sister on the team for catholic central and her sister will be low-mid 19 so not a real good example there.
 
Predictions?

I'm excited to see Bucher, Duncan, Engel, Gilson. Mick, and Stull go head to head in the girls race. My gut says Bucher bounces back from a bit of an off day at MSU last week to take the win. 17:21. Centerville takes the team title.

Boys should be awesome, as well. FIsher, Duvall, Moore, Moore, Jha, Dunham. I say Fisher 15:16 to 15:19 over Duvall. Team race should be awesome. I like Gahanna to sneak in an do some damage.

Edit: Looks like I'll be wrong on Gahanna. I saw results of the Pick. Central Tiger Run this morning (https://results.timingfirst.com/meets/4283/xc-events/171979/results), which they won with 41 points. As of yesterday, they were listed in box 17 in the elite section of SNL, but looks like that won't be the case. I'll hop on the Solon bandwagon, instead.
 
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As always, SNL was a fantastic meet. It was HOT during the day, and I think that really slowed down some of the earlier races. It was a lot nicer by the elite sections, and things seem to fly, as per the usual on this course.

I was only off by one spot on my Solon prediction. I expected Woodridge would be strong and take it to a lot of the DI teams as they always do. I did not anticipate them throwing down that strongly on everyone. They were head and shoulders above the field. A tip of the cap to them. Too bad we don't have a meet of champs after the state meet to see Woodridge, St. X, Mason, etc. all on the same start line. I bet that would be a heck of a race.
 
I expected Woodridge would be strong and take it to a lot of the DI teams as they always do. I did not anticipate them throwing down that strongly on everyone. They were head and shoulders above the field.
Yet Woodridge still isn't getting all of the 1st place votes in the OATCCC poll ?
 
If there was one thing I would change is that I would do awards throughout the evening when the stands are full for the A and B races. Results are almost instant. Just do them while the kids are in the stadium right after the races.
 
Anything ran when the sun was still out was not fast.

I missed psycho dad......maybe he was avoiding me

First team camp I came to was yours, but you weren't there. I intended to come back and find you , but I didn't make it back until after the last race. I had worked at another meet in NE Ohio from 7:30 am until 3:30 where I was out in the sun way too much and even with 50 SPF on, I was hurting. Drove a different car than I normally do. so hats and cooler clothes were sitting at home. I contemplated just going home, but it was important to my son that I was there and important to me too, so I got on the highway hoping I could make the drive awake and safe. Hit a complete stopped traffic jam after an hour on the road. A pick up truck burned completely to nothing. I made it to Centerville where I was looking forward to eating an Impossible Whopper. They were out of them, so I just went to the meet. After not seeing you, I got some food from the concession stand. Plopped my butt too high in the stands and only came down to cheer on the Bulldogs out on the course. I accidentally ran the course in a PR and rang the gong. I consoled the 3 kids that didn't run PR's, watched the Woodridge boys get the Championship trophy, then somehow drove the most boring stretch of highway between Dayton and Columbus where at 12:30 I stopped at a friends house and slept. Sorry I missed you.
 
First team camp I came to was yours, but you weren't there. I intended to come back and find you , but I didn't make it back until after the last race. I had worked at another meet in NE Ohio from 7:30 am until 3:30 where I was out in the sun way too much and even with 50 SPF on, I was hurting. Drove a different car than I normally do. so hats and cooler clothes were sitting at home. I contemplated just going home, but it was important to my son that I was there and important to me too, so I got on the highway hoping I could make the drive awake and safe. Hit a complete stopped traffic jam after an hour on the road. A pick up truck burned completely to nothing. I made it to Centerville where I was looking forward to eating an Impossible Whopper. They were out of them, so I just went to the meet. After not seeing you, I got some food from the concession stand. Plopped my butt too high in the stands and only came down to cheer on the Bulldogs out on the course. I accidentally ran the course in a PR and rang the gong. I consoled the 3 kids that didn't run PR's, watched the Woodridge boys get the Championship trophy, then somehow drove the most boring stretch of highway between Dayton and Columbus where at 12:30 I stopped at a friends house and slept. Sorry I missed you.

I saw that traffic jam while coming north on 71. It was a couple miles into Morrow County from Richland County. Very inconvenient spot since that is a 10-mile stretch of road without an exit. I left the U.S. 36 exit around 4:00, so it was probably around 4:30 that I saw the charred remains of that truck on the side of the road plus the emergency vehicles that were occupying 2 of the 3 lanes. Traffic was backed up for at least 3 miles at the time I came through, and the jam was continuing to grow. It must've been that way for awhile since a lot of people had gotten out of their cars to have a look around. Amherst Steele's bus was caught in it.
 
I just hope that the 5 cars of people using the berm for three miles got to the hospital in time to perform the life saving surgeries they had to get to. I sort of felt bad that those 5 cars had to share the road with the rest of us lowlifes that had nowhere to be.
 
If there was one thing I would change is that I would do awards throughout the evening when the stands are full for the A and B races. Results are almost instant. Just do them while the kids are in the stadium right after the races.

Are there any good awards presentations anymore? The stands cleared out before the last runner was in. The winning team is up on the board before 1/2 the runners are in. I try to stick around for awards out of respect to the kids, but Woodridge is usually getting awards, so it's not completely going out of my way to stay. My kids like the awards ceremonies even if it's just in front of our schools supporters. I'm sure not many in the SW Ohio area cared much that Woodridge and Solon took 1st and second in the final race. Woodridge travels well with parents and middle school kids, so it's fun for us and good for teams that beat us or finish second behind us. There will be people there if we are there. I was at another meet earlier in the day where they did a great job of making it entertaining and fun and to nearly no one. What are good ideas to make it better for the kids?
 
Are there any good awards presentations anymore? The stands cleared out before the last runner was in. The winning team is up on the board before 1/2 the runners are in. I try to stick around for awards out of respect to the kids, but Woodridge is usually getting awards, so it's not completely going out of my way to stay. My kids like the awards ceremonies even if it's just in front of our schools supporters. I'm sure not many in the SW Ohio area cared much that Woodridge and Solon took 1st and second in the final race. Woodridge travels well with parents and middle school kids, so it's fun for us and good for teams that beat us or finish second behind us. There will be people there if we are there. I was at another meet earlier in the day where they did a great job of making it entertaining and fun and to nearly no one. What are good ideas to make it better for the kids?

Even though everyone already knew where they stood prior to the awards ceremony, I thought Carroll HS does some good things at the All-Catholic meet. After a race, they try to get the top 2 or 3 finishers and ask them their thoughts about the race, the course, and what their postseason outlook is for both themselves and their teams. Then, they do a proper awards ceremony at the end of the meet which had something of a family atmosphere since all the schools that stayed have something in common (aside from maybe having runners who won something). Before the awards ceremony began, Carroll's coach had St. Edward's head coach come and speak to the runners. St. Edward's coach is Nate Brannen who was a 3x Olympian for Canada as a middle distance runner and a multiple-time NCAA champion and All-American at the U. of Michigan. The core of his message was to take advantage of your opportunities in the sport. On to the awards presentation: Top 20 in each classification (DI and DII/DIII) were presented awards. Places 11-20 got wooden medallions with the meet logo burned onto a square of wood. They had that sweet smell to them that a wood burning kit provides. 4th-10th got the same medals plus T-shirts. 1st-3rd got T-shirts and posters with 1 of those meme-like outdoor scenes captioned by a quote or inspirational word. They had all 20 remain on display to get a group photo and had a podium for the top 6 placers. Top 2 teams got another poster and t-shirts, and the winning team got its name on the traveling trophy. The highlight of the awards ceremony was that Carroll's stopped it for a couple minutes, so that everyone could cheer on the last runner in the JV boys' race. The young man was 25 min. behind the next to last runner and was competing in either his 2nd or 3rd race ever. He has Down Syndrome and was accompanied by a guide. Yeah, it's illegal to do so, but his entire team met him a few meters from the line and ran in with him. There was rather a large eruption of cheers from the rest of us. It was a rather touching moment for everyone.

Other things I've seen that can be interesting: In track and field, they do the awards ceremonies for each event as quickly as they can following the event. Occasionally, Perry's coach might try to do a quick "Q and A" with the event winner. Sometimes it's corny, sometimes it's OK. Occasionally, Perry's coach will also ask for the other schools' coaches to volunteer to hand out the awards if a coach has an athlete that won or who placed well. That's also done at the collegiate level where the winning athlete's coach will pass out the awards to the event's placers. In one particular year, Perry had a group of past state champions from the county attend the meet, and they gave out the awards to the athletes in the event that they won at state. It may have been a thrill for 100m dash placers to meet Devin Smith (current Dallas Cowboy) or for 400m guys to meet Antone Blair (IIRC he has held the county 200m and 400m records for over 40 years). Blair allegedly gave the kids the business about how they didn't have to run on any slower surfaces or wear heavier racing shoes than what he had in his day. That's one of the cool features of Maplewood's Legends of Cross Country Meet. With that program's connections, the people they are able to bring back to pass out the awards each year is rather impressive! Yet another cool thing is the meets that try to make their awards unique. Our county track meet medals are cut in the shape of the county. One can only get so excited about receiving another ribbon or medal that looks like it came straight out of the Oriental Trading Company catalog, but I do understand that not all meets can afford to break the budget on awards.
 
I think Centerville is a fantastic meet, but I wouldn't mind seeing them time up the awards and do them on the field quickly in between loops during races. You'd have the attention of a lot of people. And we'd get a break from the, uh, music.
 
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