Varsity highlights

The Pioneer varsity cross country team continued its strong 2003 showing, this time providing an even brighter glimmer of its potential as it gave Saline a real scare - though our rivals to the south hung on to win yet another SEC meet in the conference's first match-up of the year. This time Saline's "A" team did show up, and Pioneer not only gave it a run for its money but it also competed very well with another strong Dexter team, which easily dominated the White Division while barely getting edged by Saline in the overall meet standings, 48-51 - with Pioneer a close third with 58. In the Red division, Pioneer trailed Saline by a mere seven points, 36-29.

Leading the way for Pioneer again was its top trio, but this time in the reverse order from the Brother Rice meet: junior Takashi Gould finished 5th with an incredibly fast time of 16:13 - a PR of a whopping 52 seconds. Senior Jeff Hubbard (16:24) finished 8th with another strong performance and a second straight PR - this time by 29 seconds. And junior Morty Stensones-Fornaess (16:39) was right behind Jeff in 9th place, overcoming stomach difficulties and obvious difficulties - especially in the middle of the race - to nonetheless finish strong.

Even more encouraging than this threesome's continued leading ways - and perhaps even more remarkable - was the way the team's 4 and 5 runners stepped up. Junior Johannes Widmalm took 16th place in 17:06 - 1:25 faster than he's ever run before - and sophomore Lang Burkhardt vaulted 1:12 past his previous PR to 17:14, good enough for 19th place. Excellent race, fellas.

Varsity team results

Teams   Place (Red Division)    Points
Saline          1                29   (1-2-7-8-11 (17)(18))
Pioneer         2                36   (3-5-6-10-12(19)(20))
Bedford         3                55   (4-9-13-14-15(16)(21))     
Adrian          4               120   (22-23-24-25-26(27)(28))   

Pioneer varsity runners

Last Name               First Name  Place(Red Div)  Time
Gould                   Takashi        3            16:13 PR! (-52)
Hubbard                 Jeff           5            16:24 PR! (-29)
Stensones-Fornaess      Morten         6            16:39 
Widmalm                 Johannes      10            17:06 PR! (-1:25)
Burkhardt               Langdon       12            17:14 PR! (-1:12)
Moyer                   Dan                         18:02
Anderson                Eric                        18:40

Weather: 78, sunny, low humidity

Junior varsity highlights

The Junior Varsity enjoyed arguably an even better outing than the Varsity: with senior Sam Milgrom (18:07) leading the way with a 2nd place finish, the team won the race handily as its top five finishers all placed among the race's top 10. The next four Pioneer runners - senior Hiro Totsuka (18:30), junior Andrew Lyjack (18:32), sophomore Craig Marlatt (18:33), and sophomore Mark Antonuk (18:34) - placed 6th, 8th, 9th, and 10th, and were separated by a mere four seconds.

Last meet's leading freshman Austin Taylor (19:45) improved by another 11 seconds, but this time he was trumped by two other first year runners: Ben Bross (19:13) and Nick Ochal (19:44) - who was running in his first-ever race for Pioneer. Meanwhile, freshmen Tyler Vane (19:52; a 56 second improvement) and Jon Voiles (20:02, bettering last meet's time by 36 seconds) continued to impress, and freshman Jamie Fogel (20:22) improved by 1:06 to edge closer to the top Freshman Five.

Other notable performances included sophomore Paul Corbett (18:55) smashing the 19 minute barrier for the first time, sophomore Lars Zwannenburg bettering his previous PR by 1:39 with a 20:42, sophomore David Hanss (22:52) making a remarkable improvement of 2:23 between his first and second race, and freshman Jon Strader's 51 second improvement to 23:07.

There were a total of 18 PRs among the 30 JV runners in this race. Congratulations to all - and keep up the good work!

Last Name     First Name  Place(overall)  Time
Milgrom       Sam         2               18:07  PR! (-9)
Tutsuka       Hiro        6               18:30  PR! (-28)
Lyjak         Andrew      8               18:32  PR! (-14)
Marlatt       Craig       9               18:33  PR! (-1:07)
Antonuk       Mark       10               18:34
Mohan         Sathish    13               18:49  PR! (-1:39)
Corbett       Paul       14               18:55  PR! (-12)
Bross         Ben        24               19:13  PR! (-50)
Nao           Jeff       32               19:34  PR! (-9)
Ochal         Nick       38               19:44
Taylor        Austin     40               19:45  PR! (-10)
Fisher        Adam       42               19:48
Vane          Tyler      43               19:52  PR! (-56)
Voiles        Jon        48               20:02  PR! (-36)
Weaver        Wes        50               20:06  PR! (-34)
Johnson       Greg       58               20:22
Fogel         Jamie      59               20:22  PR! (-1:16)
Zwaanburg     Lars       67               20:42  PR! (-1:39)
White         Dale       68               20:45
Boonin        John       69               20:46
Zhang         Dan        74               21:05  PR! (-21)
Holmes        Jake       76               21:20
Durent        Wes        80               21:25
Stapleton     Joe        81               21:28  PR! (-12)
DeGeorge      Zack       83               21:45
Hanns         David	 101               22:52  PR! (-2:23)
Atwell        Miles	 103               23:00
Strader       John	 107               23:07  PR! (-51)
Del Zoppo     David	 113               23:41
Gillespie     Will	 134               28:13

Final notes

Saturday's race is on a relatively flat and fast Holly Invitational course at Springfield Oaks Park. It should be another large and competitive field - similar to the one we faced at the Brother Rice Invitational - and lots of fun for Pioneer if the team can continue to build on its early season successes. Will this be the meet when a Pioneer runner finishes in under 16:00 for the first time in at least six years? Might more than one of our guys break that magical barrier?

PR! - new personal record, refers to all-time PR, not just the best time of the season