LYONS CROSS COUNTRY AT HOISINGTON
by Larry Dumler
This was not a bad way to start the season. I saw some kids that really wanted to compete. Our young kids went out with the lead group and stayed with them through the first 2 miles. Their distance strength just could not keep with them. Mauro led the JV race for 2 ½ miles and then he just ran out of gas. When he learns to run smoothly he will do some good things. Tyler Konda ran strong the last mile. He just needs to get the confidence to run with the leaders the first part of the race. Mario Franco was just a little hesitant about running hard as he has not had some of the workouts the others have. He needs some over distance work to improve. Andrew Christmann, Youngchan Park, Roy Lopez, Jared Cardonne all need to get the confidence to run hard. Jared hung with the lead group for along time but just did not have the strength. Andrew and Youngchan will be needing some distance strength work to improve. We will be working hard in practice to do just that. They won’t like it very much, but we need to d what we need to get them better. Kevin Thomasson has been fighting some bad shin splints and just could not finish that race. We gave him some strengthening stretches to help him with them. He will be pretty good when he can run hard.
For the boys varsity Mathew Sparkman and Cody Rodriquez were the only two we ran today. They return from the state team last year. They did just what we hoped they would do. They went out and competed with the lead pack. I knew they ran hard as they both went down at the end of the race. Those two put some summer miles in and it shows.
On the girls’ side we only had two in the varsity race. Kylee Martinez and Danielle Wendler. Kylee ran well. She ran with the lead pack for the first mile. I think she got scared a little, when she started to breath hard. When that happens your body tells you to slow down. When she gets over that fear she will do well. Danielle, again, is fighting some shin splints. She has the heart to run, but those things just don’t let you run hard. They are really unforgiving when you run hard. She will work at getting them under control. Kaitlyn Malone could not finish the race. Her asthma was really bad. That just doesn’t let you do much of anything.
We had one Middle School runner today. Tyler Christmann ran really strong. He went out strong and did a great job. He ended up winning the 7th grade race. He set a time he will have to work hard to beat. He does a nice job of doing just that in practice.
We had 6 kids who brought home hardware. For as young as we are, that is not too bad. Mathew, Cody. Mauro. Tyler, and Kylee were the High School runners who earned hardware. Tyler was the lone Middle School runner competing and he won his race and brought home the gold!
Individual times(place not available at this time)-Cody—19:07, Mathew-19:22, Mauro-21:23, Tyler-21:40, Jared-23:01, Mario-22:30, Roy-23:45, Andrew-27:07, Youngchan-30:13
Kylee-19:12, Danielle-21:45
Middle School-Tyler-6:31
We go to Skyline and Hutchinson for the Middle School next week Thursday. We will put together a full varsity for the boys and I am not sure for the girls.
