Post- 6 Mile Relay Hornets Stride Out

DENTON – The Greenhill cross country team traveled at an early morning hour to the Marcus I Invitational on September 5 and returned with plenty of highlights for what promises to be an exciting 2009 season.

The girls team held their own in the 4A and under race, despite not fielding their complete squad. While the girls finished 17^th out of 19 competing teams, their pack of #2-5 runners moved nicely through the field to all finish in the top 100. Newcomer Liz Livingston (’13) led the team, but it was Harrier of the Week Lauren Shapiro (’11) who led the pack of Greenhill runners some 30 seconds behind Liz. Lauren, co-captain Katherine Marmion (’10), Noelle Smith (’12) and Madeline Nelson (’12) ran closely together in the race and inevitably helped push each other. Lauren’s finishing time of 14:34 marked a whopping 1:25 improvement compared to last year’s race. The two mile race also marked the first time Liz, Lauren Bennett (’12) and Blythe Baresh (’13) competed in a varsity two mile event.

Nike National Champion Chelsey Sveinsson (’11) opted to compete in the 5A race and she did not disappoint. Leading the field through a controlled 5:24 mile, only one competitor was near Chelsey at that stage of the race. Chelsey increased her lead by the time she crossed the finish line in a time of 10:45. That time was well below her goal for the race and was an incredulous 1:03 faster than her time last year. This first two mile race is a good sign that Chelsey has not lost a beat with her training and racing since competing in July in the World Youth Track Games.

As for the boys, the J.V. boys actually toed the line first and were paced by newcomer and one of the team’s biggest motivators, Ivan Kumamoto (’12). Ivan came through the first mile in 6:00 and held on to finish in 135^th place. One of countless freshman on the team, Borren Moe (’13) sneaked by Ivan near the finish line as the team’s top runner in 128^th place with a respectable time of 20:16 for the 5K distance. Behind Borren and Ivan, eight other boys followed and competed well in the rather large field of 360 runners. Similar to the girls, this race was the first chance many of the freshmen and newcomers on the team raced 5k (3.1 miles) and the coaches were quite pleased with how they welcomed that challenge. The J.V. squad finished 16^th out of 22 teams.

Following the J.V. boys, the varsity race was full of pleasant surprises. First off, Eriq Robinson (’11) overcame a conservative start and worked his way through the field to finish 13^th in 17:22. That time was good for a new personal record (“pr”) and was close to a two minute improvement on Eriq’s best for this course. The other surprise came in the aggressive mid-race running of Ryan Duffy (’13), the boys Harrier of the Week. Ryan’s 5:38 second mile looked effortless and his race provided a big boost to a team with several runners under the weather. The varsity team placed 8^th out of 25 teams.

The Hornets now have two weeks to focus on training before they’re racing again at the Ken Garza Invitational in Denton on Saturday, September 19.