Crazy day of racing!
- For starters, it wasn't muddy. I don't know how to act when Boardman is dry for the regional meet.
Girls
- Maplewood and Gilmour girls tied for the DIII girls title with McDonald comfortably advancing in 3rd. The race for the 4th team spot was hot. Canton CC had 3 in the top 16, but 1 was unable to continue somewhere slightly past halfway. Smithville capitalized with solid frontrunners and a good pack performance to hold off East Canton.
- Gilson dominated the individual race. Beamount girls barely held off St. V-M and Tallmadge for the DII title. Woodridge girls still have an excellent knack for doing what they need to do to advance to yet another state meet. Poland got through after so many near-misses in past years, and Chagrin Falls lived to fight another week,
- St. Joe's Academy took down a large field. Jackson girls narrowly averted disaster when their normal #1 lost her shoe early in the race but kept battling to still be their 3rd runner on the day and help them nail down 7th place. Howland proved that DI wasn't too big for them after being in DII last year.
Boys
- East Canton and McDonald proved to be the class of the region in DIII boys, but I did not expect all that happened behind them. Dalton rode a great day from their top 4 runners, especially the top 3 to advance. I raced against Dalton in a triangular meet the 1st year they had an XC team in the late '90s. The other team competing that day was St. V-M. They were a far cry from the program they are today. South Range worked an effective pack into the 4th spot to leave perennial power Maplewood home by 2 pts. and up-and-coming Canton CC by 9 pts. It should be a good rematch between Snellenberger and Fisher. McDonald advanced teams of both genders from this region.
- We'll see what happens next week, but I think this is Woodridge's 2nd best team ever. '06 is the gold standard for me. That was a dominant run today to complete the 15th straight year of advancing BOTH genders to the state meet. Poland and St. V-M also advanced both genders in DII from this region. How often does a team score under 100 pts. in a 19-team meet and still lose by 73 pts? Not very often, but that was the fate for a very good Bay team. IIRC, Bay has compiled more than 30 trips to state as a team in boys XC. NDCL and Cloverleaf held off a few other teams in a hot race for the final 2 team spots.
- The DI boys race was extremely difficult to track, especially with Kenston and Louisville having such similar color schemes and Hudson sporting gray uniforms. I wish my school could afford to have so many different sets of uniforms, haha. Solon had the best cheering section with many of their boys wearing shirts and ties. St. Ignatius and Medina keep churning out state teams. University School proved once again that they're dangerous at the end of the year when they get all of their athletes together, and Jackson is a team that refuses to be eliminated. Jackson was dead to rights at the district until another team's top runner lost 6 places in the final 25m while struggling to reach the finish and swung the team results in Jackson's favor. Today, Jackson clawed its way to the 8th and final team spot by 1 pt. over Mentor while also beating 3 of the teams that beat them last week in the process. It sure beats the alternative. Jackson, Medina, and Hudson all advanced both genders to state from this region.