Coach Visokey on the 2011 Mt Sac Invitational

http://rise.espn.go.com/track-and-xc/california/2011-xc/Results/October/Week-9/21-Mt-SAC.aspx

Team,

That was a spectacular performance yesterday at Mt. Sac. Our varsity team time of 80:35 was the 3^rd fastest Division 5 team time in history at Mt. Sac, and easily shattered the school record we set last year, by over 2 minutes. While some of you may be disappointed with our second place finish, I am not. We lost to St. Margaret’s by only 19 points 42-61, and they have been declared over and over again as the best team in Division 5 history. We will need to finish better at the two Championship meets at the end of the year. We led St. Margaret’s at the one mile mark and it was close at the two mile mark, but they finished well in the last mile. If we learned anything from this it is that if we all put it together at the right time, we will have a chance to win it all.

Scott Acton and Bryan Curtis both broke Tim Smith’s (15:51) DCHS course record set in 2002 with Acton running a stunning 15:35 and Curtis a 15:50, but just as impressive were the 16:14 run by Andrew Starksen, and the 16:27 run by Zac Patten. Thomas Waters came in at 16:29 placing our top 5 in the top 21 for the race. I believe we have the potential to knock at least another minute off of that time at the Southern Section Finals, and that just might be enough. We now hold the 6^th fastest time ever run at Mt. Sac for a Division 4 or Division 5 team. In fact, had we run in the Division 4 race we would have come in first, and there were only a couple of teams faster in the Division 3 race.

We also received outstanding performances by Ray Biggerstaff (17:15), Josh DeVore (17:51), freshman Stephen Crockett (18:55) who placed 11^th in the freshman race, and Sophomore Joe Ricketson (19:24) who would have medaled if he had been in the Division 5 sophomore race with 90% of the Division 5 schools. Nick Nystrom (20:55) was also fabulous on the day, after getting injured about two-thirds of the way through the race, he still finished strong.

All 19 athletes on our boy’s team were once again outstanding, and I am very proud of all of you. We have some work to do as we go into the final phase of the season, but the bottom line is we are right where we need to be.

In His Service,

Coach Visokey

P.S. The results link is attached.