Varsity highlights

Well, it was a little disappointing after great meets at Brother Rice and Holly.

In the first SEC jamboree, Pioneer finished 3rd out of 4 teams. Although Pioneer did not run brilliantly, the principal problem was the quality of the opposition. Everybody knows about Saline, but it turns out that Temperance Bedford also has an excellent team. Actually, Bedford has already had several top performances this season. For example, last Saturday at the Spartan Invitational on a fast course, Bedford's top five had times of 16:35-16:57-17:06-17:16-17:17. So Bedford is not chopped liver. They can be beaten, but it will take a stronger performance from the Pioneers.

Yet again, the Pioneers were led by the Johnson and Naughton duo, with James ahead this time. James took 4th place with a time of 17:15, a few seconds behind Bedford's Matt Johnson. (James did manage to beat Mike Grammes of Tecumseh, who ran 15:59 at the Class B State Meet last November.) Our Matt Johnson finished in 6th (17:32) and was followed by Eric, Joe, Nick, Andy and Robby. In general, the times were fairly slow for all runners because of warm temperatures, the "Big Bertha" hill, and the difficulty of running two races in three days (which was the same for everybody).

Varsity team results for SEC Red Division

Team                      Points
1.  Saline                  30
2.  Temperance Bedford      41
3.  Ann Arbor Pioneer       51
4.  Adrian                 113

Pioneer varsity runners

Name                 Place    Time
James Naughton         4     17:15
Matt Johnson           6     17:32
Eric Ford-Holevinski  10     17:47
Joe Anderson          14     18:01
Nick Piotrowski       17     18:11
Andy Harvey           21     18:47
Robby Young           23     19:44

Junior varsity highlights

Pioneer's JV runners were led by Mike Roth with a PR (personal record) time of 19:19. Mike has established a PR in every race this season, the only runner on the team to accomplish this. Great work.

Sam Milgrom ran an excellent time of 20:19, a PR by over a minute, and now has the top time by a freshman this season. Soren Berg also had a PR, and his time of 19:28 makes him the fastest sophmore. New PR's were also set by Kota Takahashi, Carl Duke, Josh Salvner and Stephen Sepaniak. Congratulations on conquering Big Bertha!

Two senior runners competed for the first time this season: Pat Fay and Dean Dohadwala. Pat Fay ran cross country in 1998, but skipped the 1999 season. Pat was pretty good in 1998, establishing a PR of 18:13.

Finally, we don't want to forget the continued improvement of Kevin Mulholland. In the first meet, Kevin finished dead last on the team by a margin of almost two minutes. Today, Kevin finished ahead of four Pioneers. Excellent job.

Name               Time
Mike Roth         19:19  PR!  (-   8)
Soren Berg        19:28  PR!  (-  24)
Kevin Goehring    19:48
Kota Takahashi    19:52  PR!  (-  13)
Sam Milgram       20:19  PR!  (-1:09)
Carl Duke         20:36  PR!  (-   5) 
Pat Fay           20:58
Josh Salvner      21:01  PR!  (-   2) 
Stephen Sepaniak  21:01  PR!  (-  26) 
Parry Garff       22:01
Dean Dohadwala    22:32
Kevin Mulholland  24:20
Cedric York       24:29
Kellan Winbourne  24:29
Chad Schoch       24:33
Gabe Sanders      24:49

PR! - new personal record

Go Pioneers!