Varsity highlights

The Pioneer cross-country team traveled to Bedford for the first SEC Jamboree of the season. On this hot and steamy day our varsity runners turned in an exceptional performance in this early season contest. The new format for scoring this meet also gave us the opportunity to run against nationally ranked Dexter.

Led by Senior Co-Captain Morty Stensones-Fornaess (15:55), Pioneer demonstrated that they can compete with the top teams in the Midwest. Morty ran in an exciting head to head race with Williams and Nalli of Dexter, breaking 16 minutes very early in the season. Junior Peter Christmas, who ran a personal best (16:23) and Senior Co-Captain Takashi Gould (16:38) running in his first race of the year, both finished in the top ten. This trio of runners showed today that they will be able to run with anybody in the state. Junior Craig Marlett (17:15) improved 43 seconds on his time at the Brother Rice Invite. Good job Craig! Junior Eric Anderson (17:31) running in the fifth spot continues to show improvement by running a PR and knocking 16 seconds off of his time from last week. Senior Kyle Kulseth ran with the varsity squad for the first time this year and dropped 58 seconds from last week's performance. He continues to run stronger and stronger. And Sophomore Ben Bross also continues to develop and improve, as he equaled his personal best time from 2003. Good Job Ben!

This varsity squad has a tremendous opportunity to "show its stuff" this Saturday at the Holly Invitational. Plenty of good competition and some great momentum from the SEC meet set the table for what could be a day to remember!

Varsity team results

Place  Team	Points
1      Dexter     45
2      Pioneer    59
3      Bedford    71
4      Saline     80
5      Chelsea    100
6      Lincoln    148
7      Tecumseh   205
8      Adrian     240

The athletic directors of the SEC schools elected to have all the teams
from the Red and White divisions compete against each other for this meet.

Pioneer varsity runners

Place  Runner                    Time
2nd    Morty Stensones-Fornaess  15:55
6th    Peter Christmas           16:23  PR! (-37)
10th   Takashi Gould             16:38
19th   Craig Marlatt             17:15
22nd   Eric Anderson             17:31  PR! (-9)
26th   Kyle Kulseth              17:48
30th   Ben Bross                 17:57

Weather: 80, humid, sunny

Junior varsity highlights

Once again the Pioneer JV squad decimated the competition at this years SEC meet taking the top 7 places. You read it right; the first seven runners to cross the line wore purple and white! Season best times were abundant, as the JV squad found the Bedford course to their liking. Returning to his 2003 form, Junior Lang Burghardt led the Pioneer pack across the finish line in a very fast time of 17:42. Junior Mark Antonuk finished second with an outstanding run and PR. Sophomore Nick Ochal ran a strong race to finish third and grab a PR. Junior Will Barden and Junior Leo Callender set a blazing pace on the first two miles, and both finished with a PR.

Among the freshmen, Charlie Clavell continues to sparkle with a fourth place finish and a PR. His time of 18:12 is outstanding at this point in the season. Freshman Taylor Deluca took 1:08 off his best time and in doing so went under 20 minutes. Freshman Chris Norat set a personal best by 2:00, great job Chris! Freshman Rajan Kinshuk took 1:25 off of his time from Brother rice.

Other big time PR's were registered by Jon Levinson (-2:11), Zach DeGeorge (-1:35), Jon Strader (-1:25) and David Del Zoppo (-1:23). But Jack Durham beat everyone by dropping his PR by 2:35!

Congratulations to our JV squad!

Name                               Time
Lang Burghardt                     17:42
Mark Antonuk                       18:04 PR! (-8)
Nick Ochal                         18:10 PR! (-6)
Charlie Clavell                    18:12 PR! (-1:03)
Will Barden                        18:18 PR! (-1:03)
Leo Callender                      18:28 PR! (-24)
Dale White                         18:30 PR! (-23)
Mack McDonald-Wilkins              18:58 PR! (-19)
Adam Fisher                        19:13
Jon Levinson                       19:18 PR! (-2:11)
Tyler Vane                         19:28
Joe Stapleton                      19:29 PR! (-37)
Zach DeGeorge                      19:36 PR! (-1:35)
Jon Strader                        19:47 PR! (-1:25)
Taylor Deluca                      19:51 PR! (-1:08)
Jamie Fogel                        19:52
Nick Rivard                        19:58 PR! (-43)
Greg Johnson                       20:08
David Del Zoppo                    20:31 PR! (-1:23)
Yan Charniauski                    20:35 PR! (-40)
Jake Holmes                        20:38
Miles Atwell                       20:44
RJ Stefl                           20:45
Dan Zhang                          21:10
Lars Zwannenburg                   21:24
David Hanss                        21:25
Andrew Copp                        21:35 PR! (-56)
Tommy Held                         21:40 PR! (-1:00)
John Boonin                        21:40
Kinshuk Rajan                      21:54 PR! (-1:25)
Jack Durham                        22:52 PR! (-2:35)
Chris Norat                        23:18 PR! (-2:00)
Paul Kimeldorf                     23:24
Malte Herlitze                     23:30 PR! (-1:06)
Chris White                        26:46
Will Peltier                       DNF

Final notes

Our next meet is this Saturday September 18th at the Nike-Holly Invitational. The race will be run at Springfield Oaks County Park in Davisburg, Michigan. Junior Varsity will run first at 11:35am and the Varsity at 12:50pm. This is a large meet, similar to the Brother Rice Invite and promises to be very competitive. If you plan on coming, give yourself a little extra time to navigate the traffic and parking.

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