The Boys Cross Country team traveled to Roper Park in Jasper for the Sharptop Invitational on Saturday, October 17, 2015. Enjoying the best weather conditions of the season, the Raiders had 14 of 29 runners set PR's and another seven racers came within 15 seconds of establishing their personal bests. The Roper Park course challenges with several terrains, a few rolling hills, a tunnel, and a few narrow passes.
Varsity notes:
The Varsity race consisted of 22 teams and 194 runners. The Raiders finished 10th under the leadership of Mark Shutley, Jeffrey Edge, and Erick Ramirez.
A pack of three runners broke away early. Mark Shutley settled into the back of the chase pack and hovered between 15th-20th the first half of the race. When the chase pack split into two groups, he stayed in the second group. In the last mile, Shutley's group filled the 13th-19th place spots. With 1200 remaining, Shutley and two others started to advance. At the 800 mark, with Shutley leading the surging pack, others faltered. When the dust settled over the spirited battle to the finish between Shutley and a runner from Pope High School, Shutley emerged with a time of 17:05, in 14th place. Shutley's goal is to break 17:00 at next week's region meet.
Jeffrey Edge had a breakthrough day slipping in under 18:00 for the first time in his career (17:55) for 38th place. Erick Ramirez's third mile charge reward was an 18:27 time and a new PR. Rounding out the top seven Raiders were Baxter Shirey, Willie Herrigel, Reece Bernard (4 seconds off his PR), and Luis Zambrano.
JV notes:
The much larger JV competition had 259 runners from 16 teams. The JV Raiders, led by Nasir Muhammad, Gerardo Camacho, and Juan Gasperin, finished 8th overall.
Even though the JV ran later in the morning, the weather was still primed for some good running. Nasir Muhammad held the 25th place spot for most of the race; he moved up in the last mile to finish 19th in a PR time of 19:13. Possibly having to duck through the final tunnel kept him from breaking 19:00? On his heels were Gerardo Camacho (19:58) and Juan Gasperin just short of breaking 20:00 as he finished in a PR 20:02. The rest of the top seven Raiders were Chris Sprung, Sam Miller, Mitchell Davidson, and Benny Soran.
Congratulations to the following JV runners for setting PR's: Nasir Muhammad, Juan Gasperin, Mitchell Davidson, Jared Mills, Jaime Prentice, Reid Scheinman, Ethan Hunt, Yair Barranca, Ethan Wells, Edgar Avalos Losza, Jonah Mills, and Jack Buehner.
The next Boys Cross Country competition is the Region 7-AAAAA meet at Boling Park in Canton on Wednesday, October 28, 2015.
