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Davidson Hilliard OH coach Pat Schlecht took the microphone
after the awards ceremony. "This is a dream come true,"
he told the crowd.
The idea for the meet started with Schlecht's desire to get
more competion for his runners to prepare them for state championships
in his 5th year at Davidson. "If you want to get better,
you have to run with the best." That's why he has taken
his teams to Illinois to face York and Michigan to face Rockford.
Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan all have nationally ranked teams,
but they also have state association travel restrictions that
keep them from travelling to big national meets like the Great
American Cross Country Festival in Charlotte. So they decided
to put on a quality meet among themselves. Schlecht enlisted
veteran coaches Chuck Koeppen (Carmel IN) and Brad Prins (Rockford
MI) to recruit teams in their states.
At the end of the meet, Schlecht was pleased with his creation,
but he was already thinking of next year. He said he wanted
to increase to 20 teams and get more of the top teams in each
of the states.
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