Results

On a windy day at River Green in Duluth, our Bronco harriers bested the competition in both the JV and Varsity divisions. This meet was organized into 5 "stages" for Junior Varsity and 5 "stages" for Varsity.

The day started off on the right foot, when sophomore Michael Giuliano took control of the first JV stage at the mile mark and never looked back. He was followed (closely, by the end of the race) by freshman upstart Kevin Marsh, who actually ran his second mile 13 seconds faster than his first to take 2nd place. Also running well in this stage was Matt Barudin, whose 14th place finish was a great start to his cross country racing career.

After going 1-2 in the first stage, the guys in subsequent stages were feeling confident about the team's chances. Matt Layman and Tucker Forbes didn't disappoint in the second stage, as they finished 1-3 in their race. Both juniors ran conservatively in the first mile and Matt pulled away convincingly by the finish.

The third stage saw more domination by the Broncos, as Sean Brennan and Nick Kazmer finished 1st and 2nd, respectively. This mix of youth and experience was the story for this stage, as this pairing clearly established us as the team to beat.

Next, it was Justin Bond and Zac Brooks turn to take to the course. They also won easily, with Justin finishing just behind Zac to solidify the victory, and taking a lot of pressure off our guys running in the final JV stage.

The final stage saw each team's best JV athletes. Daniel Kwak and Andrey Brantner compared well against everyone else's best, with both finishing in the top 5. Daniel's runner-up finish gave our team a total of 6 points, nearly a "perfect" score, and a dominating win for our JV athletes. Congratulations to these guys...their hard work in the summer is the reason for this dominant performance!

After watching the success of our junior varsity squad, the varsity team seemed eager to race. The opening varsity stage saw an aggressive start turn into a 2nd and 4th place showing for seniors Sean Hitchens and Alex Pena, but despite both earning medals, we were 1 point off the lead of the defending state champs, Collins Hill.

Juniors Tommy George and Zack Robinson used this score as motivation, and really shifted the momentum our way in the second stage. A late surge by Tommy George helped him to win the stage over the Collins Hill athlete, and Zack's final kick also propelled him past the same athlete, as Tommy and Zack finished 1-2! This gave us a 1 point lead over Collins Hill, but the battle wasn't over yet!

In the third stage, senior captain Michael Sexton took no chances, as he bolted out of the box, cleared the 1 mile mark in 4:55, and never looked back, taking 1st place. Carter Hewitt bested another Collins Hill athlete with his finishing kick to finish second...another 1-2 finish, which gave us a more comfortable advantage heading into the final two stages.

Our last two stage runners were not to be outdone...they had to close the door on the competition, a tough Collins Hill team. In the fourth stage, Tyler Anyan took it out hard in 5:00, and finished 2nd in a competitive field, ahead of everyone but a South Forsyth runner who would have been in the mix in the final stage. Doug Kalmbach started aggressively in the final stage (4:51 at the 1 mile mark), and came home in 4th, just behind some of the best runners in the state to clinch the victory for the team.

Both wins were truly a result of teamwork, hard work and tenacity, and both served as an outstanding start to our competitive season! The boys successfully defended the #1 ranking this weekend, and we've got a few weeks to prepare for our next meets, the Mill Creek Meet (9/11) and the Carrollton Invitational on September 13, where we'll again see many of these same teams in a traditional 5k cross country race.

Conditions were perfect for the 2008 Team Time Trial, and many of our Bronco harriers took advantage of these ideal conditions. Really, there were two stories on the day. The first: despite a delay in accurate results because of a stopwatch malfunction, the 2008 trial was an impressive performance, with a top 5 average even better than last year, and with 14 runners under 17:30. The second storyline was clearly the massive improvements for many of our athletes, 2-3 minutes off last year's time in some cases!

Leading the way was senior Doug Kalmbach, whose negative splits propelled him to the fastest time on this course (15:55...wow!) since at 2003. Next came the pack. Junior Tyler Anyan pulled away from the group in the final 1000 meters to finish in 16:22, despite recently returning from injury. Just behind him were juniors Carter Hewitt and Tommy George, with seniors Sean Hitchens and Michael Sexton. The time gap from #1 to #5 (as fast as that time was) was only 37 seconds. Caught between our lead group and the next large group was junior Zack Robinson, whose 16:59 was 1:05 better than 2007.

Top 7 Finishers
1	Doug Kalmbach, 12th	15:55
2	Tyler Anyan, 11th	16:22
3	Carter Hewitt, 11th	16:27
4	Tommy George, 11th	16:27
5	Sean Hitchens, 12th	16:27
6	Michael Sexton, 12th	16:31
7	Zack Robinson, 11th	16:59

There was another pack who made good on their goals for this trial. The group wanted to break 17:30, and we had a total of 14 who did so, including upstart sophomores Sean Brennan and Zac Brooks, junior Matt Layman and sophomore Michael Giuliano (just barely). This youth will help to contribute in our split squad and JV races this year. There was some experience mixed into that pack as well, as seniors Alex Pena (8th), Justin Bond (10th) and Nick Kazmer (15th) helped to push this large group throughout the race.

Perhaps the most dynamic story was the huge chunks of time dropped since last season. We had many athletes who, despite the fact that this year's trial was a week earlier in the season (last year's was August 25), knocked major time off last year's 5k trial. In addition to those already mentioned (many of whom dropped significant time), so many of our boys realized how hard work can pay off.

One of our sophomores, Matt Gerber, actually dropped an astounding 7:39 (NOT a typo, believe it or not) in the past year. Amazing. The second biggest improvement was from our #10 finisher overall: Daniel Kwak. His time of 17:18 is nearly 4:00 better than 2007. Also improving by nearly 4:00 was sophomore Nick Boswell, who dropped to 21:15. Billy Coggin and Mike Peters each came down by about two and a half minutes, and Dana White dropped 2:17. There were many others (almost too many to mention!!!) whose times are more than 1:00 lower than in 2007. Check out the comparison link at the bottom of this article to see all of the stats.

It certainly was an exciting opening to the 2008 season, but it's only a start. We'll use these results to start our rankings, determine training groups, and set goals, but we've got a long way to go before region and state. Certainly, we have reason to celebrate...but remember that our competitive season will be here soon.