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As usual the Mount
Hood Conference relays were held on a beautiful, sunny day with temperatures
in the low 80s; the Centennial High School layout for this race covers
the final mile (well, 1570m) of the District Meet course and is relatively
flat with just a few sharp turns. With perhaps our strongest and healthiest
group ever, the NW#2/US#8 Central Catholic boys
were excited to put on their uniforms and race against some other schools.
In the JV race, our three new freshmen comported themselves quite well with Connor
Roland’s 5:46 leading Connor Campbell (6:04)
and John Brewer (6:18). soph Aaron
Pecora showed that his summer training has paid great dividends with
a fine 5:51 effort – and he kicked down two athletes over the final 150m!
Our other JV squad won the race going away as soph Hew
Commeree (5:07), senior Kyle Holmes (5:13),
and frosh Austin Arguello (5:19) all dipped below
5:20. Austin’s effort was particularly noteworthy as he ran an exceptionally
good tactical lead off leg and exchanged in the lead.
For the first time in recent memory the varsity group was at full strength,
and we put together two fine squads: the Juniors (Luke
Wiltshire, Nick Turner, Sam Wotipka, David Beltramo) and the ALL CLASS
(soph Taylor Morgan, junior Kevin
O’Malley, senior Kenny Klotz, and
frosh Samot Turina). In the days prior to the
race there was much discussion amongst the groups and quite a bit of good natured
prognosticating as to which group would emerge victorious.
It wasn’t long after the gun (well, in this informal race we simply use
a whistle…) that Wiltshire went to the
front, followed closely by Morgan. It stayed that
way all the way to the finish with Luke’s 4:35 the 4th best effort on
this course in CC history; Taylor was a few ticks
back in 4:40 – the 4th best sophomore time for the Rams. From there Turner increased
the lead over the All Class team running 4:51 to O'Malley’s 4:58.
The Juniors looked good at this point, but Klotz is,
right now, a runner on fire! His 4:25 (fastest ever on this course for a CC
runner) gave his team a slight lead – even though Wotipka ran
a respectable 4:42 – and young mister Turina was
not about to let his upperclass teammates down. Finishing in a fine 4:53, Samot held
off Beltramo’s 4:57 for the victory. Given
our recent training load these were fine performances and are an excellent
harbinger of things to come in the next weeks and months.
Next up for the Rams is the Woodbridge Invitational in Irvine, CA on Saturday,
September 17th. The varsity boys will run under the lights in the Sweepstakes
division at 9:30pm, with another seven boys competing in class level races
earlier in the evening. Information on the meet can be found HERE,
while a preview of the meet should be available at DyestatCal in
the next couple of days.
Please check out our new team website, Ram XC.
Our girls’ coach, Terry Howard, has done a great job with it.
Hope to see you somewhere down the road!
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