Chloe's race was a lot better than her race last year. She placed 33 and with her quad issues was a pretty good showing for her. I felt like she got out well and was moving well throughout ... Rachel had a great day too finishing in the top 100 in her first trip to State. Both these girls demonstrated a lot of poise and confidence and in their last race at the State XC meet I felt like they had really good showings. I'm very pleased with the commitment to the program these two have shown over the last 6 years. I think that's a pretty cool story to have twin sisters make it to the State meet their Senior year ... both will have options to race at the next level so once again - we'll have Leopards going on to bigger opportunities ...

The boys team finished up in 13th place, but as I told them after the race, that really isn't representative of how good of a team they are and how far they have come since last year on the course. At that meet to place high you have to have a big gun out front to start your scoring off low ... or have the pack in 20-30 places. Yesterday we weren't able to do that ... The guys got out fine coming through their mile in around 5:05-10 ... but we didn't continue to advance through the race to finish where we needed to, to finish as high as the team had goals for. We learned though from the experience at 5A level racing, and will be back next year faster and stronger as a result. We lose only 2 Seniors from the guys team who will be hard to replace with all they have meant to the team over the years ... but in true Lovejoy XC fashion, someone will accept the challenge and continue the legacy for next year ...

Each year at the State meet it is generally the same schools who represent the top finishing spots year to year ... The Woodlands, Southlake, Kingwood, Georgetown, Canyon, Kaufman ... notably absent this year were teams from Cedar Park and Boerne Champion. We have been represented at the State meet by representatives of our girls and boys teams since we have had complete teams. Not very many schools can say that ... Our program I feel is very healthy and we are doing things right. We will work hard to get the girls team down next fall and to get the boys back into the Championship mix again ...

Jim will have a complete race breakdown on his website along with pictures and result links.

I will have much more to say about this year's edition of Lovejoy XC at our Banquet Thursday. If you haven't yet returned your invitation to Mrs. Lindelof please do so asap ... it will be a fun evening.

Run Happy, Run Long

Greg

The Lovejoy Girls were represented by seniors Chloe Tedder and Rachel Tedder. They started running in the program as 7th graders. The team has seen its fair share of twins and even more sets of siblings, but none have been as successful thus far as the Tedder sisters. Chloe has been working to overcome a less than healthy leg for the past two races, but still finished 33rd overall (out of 148 girls) with a time of 19:48.78, which is an improvement over her 19:56.77 time last fall at State. Chloe has been one of Lovejoy's most steady runners ever. She just goes out and gets it done — what a great approach to life in general. Her times have improved steadily over the years, and a top-10 finish at State was certainly feasible had she been 100% healthy today. Only 5 of the 5A girls posted a time of less than 19 minutes, and a healthy Chloe could have made it 6 runners.

One of this season's greatest thank-yous is Rachel Tedder qualifying for State. It's hard to watch one of our runners go it alone in the biggest race of the year: freshman Jake Hervey in 2007, senior Katie Ruhala in 2012, and junior Chloe Tedder last year. But Rachel's continued improvement allowed her to race at State with Chloe today. She finished 93rd overall with a time of 20:54.19, which is a successful result for her first time on the course at Old Settlers Park. It's not easy being the other sister, but Rachel has been the consummate teammate and running buddy for Chloe, while posting some great performances of her own. Lovejoy Cross Country will greatly miss both Chloe and Rachel, two of Lovejoy's finest young ladies.

[results]

The Lovejoy Boys came into the season with such high hopes that meeting them meant overcoming challenging odds. They finished 13th at State today with an average time of 17:12.2 and a split time of 58.02 in a 5A championship race. That compares with last fall's average time of 16:54.1 and split time of 29.0 seconds in a 4A championship race. On average, the top teams in today's 5A race averaged 10 to 15 seconds faster than the top teams in last year's State 4A championship. We've always said that at State all the runners are fast. And at the 5A level, all the State runners are faster than fast. Today's race also featured great parity: no team came close to breaking 100 points (unusual for a 16-team field), and only winner Houston Stratford placed all 7 of its runners in the top half of the field. Frisco Wakeland and The Colony made the mistake of starting slowly at the back of the field. The problem with this strategy at State is that the runners at the front don't slow down that much in the last mile and there's too much ground to be made up. As a result, Wakeland finished 5th and The Colony was 7th. The three trophy winners were teams the Lovejoy coaches have pointed to all season. There were no surprises — the teams were deserving. Houston Stratford took 1st, with College Station 2nd and Georgetown 3rd.

This season the boys have excelled at pack running, which should have given Lovejoy an advantage in today's competition. But with the larger field size (151 runners) and so many runners at the front of the race early on, the Leopards got separated from one another and were not able to effectively pace each other. Maybe color-coded headbands could have helped. In the preceeding three State championships, Lovejoy competed in a field of 112 runners on average. Historically Lovejoy has always taken a season to adjust to the competition at a new conference level, and that's mostly what the boys experienced today.

Noah Landguth has done a great job of leading the Varsity boys this season, and did so again today finishing #1 in 16:50.74. Grant Tiff has been one of our strongest performers. He came in #2 at 17:04.15, a solid 47-second improvement over his 2013 State performance of 17:51.2. Grant Ballard was #3 at 17:06.93 to conclude his Lovejoy Cross Country career. Will Wise was #4 in 17:10.40. Freshman Ryan Brands has been enjoying the most successful freshman year since Grant Ballard's, and completed Lovejoy's scoring at #5 in 17:48.77. Jacob Myers in his first race on this course was #6 in 18:18.83, and Sam Ruhala was #7 in 18:36.34. Lovejoy's order of finish was 28-45-53-55-85-104-108.

[results]

If being Chloe's sister might present challenges, then being Katie Ruhala's little brother should cause sleepless nights. But senior Sam Ruhala has always supported everything that is Lovejoy Cross Country with as positive an attitude as one can muster. If there is a nicer young man on the team, I have not met him. And this is a team stocked with great kids — both boys and girls. Prior to this year, Sam had been a middling JV runner. But this season he emerged as a serious harrier. For example, at District last year, Sam ran the Myers Park course in 19:59.0 and this fall he decreased his time to 17:24.04. A 2.5-minute improvement is huge for any runner, but when it vaults you onto the Varsity that usually means a shoe-in for the boys' most-improved award. Like someone who awakens to find he possesses a superpower but doesn't quite know how to wield it effectively, Sam's consistency and race management need some seasoning. He'll get these in college and should become one of our most exciting alumni to follow.

Today Grant Ballard becomes one of only three Lovejoy harriers to compete on the Varsity at District, Region, and State for all four of his high school years. The consistency of quality and dedication this takes cannot be understated. Further, Grant has never finished lower than #5 for Lovejoy at State — he has always scored well for the Leopards. This season he struggled back from a draining illness to again make important team contributions at District, Region, and State. There is no special award for such consistently high performance except the enduring satisfaction of a job well done. As one of the quietest and most unassuming runners on the team, this probably suits Grant just fine. And he has earned whatever works best for him.

Click here for the meet photo album.

Click here for the meet photo album.

Girls Region II Championships:

I was so proud of each and every girls that toed the line yesterday wearing the Lovejoy singlet. Especially our 3-7 girls had outstanding races. To miss not qualifying as a team by a mere 19 pts can be a tough pill to swallow, but in looking at the level of competition, and how well these girls ran yesterday - I am very proud to be able to work with them daily.

• Chloe Tedder: Chloe (by her own admission) didn't run as well as she could've, but ran well enough to get a top 10 finish and qualify out to the state meet as an individual. She has been battling a quad strain for the past few weeks and we will have her ready to roll on Saturday in looking for a top 10 State finish.
• Rachel Tedder: Rachel's time of 19:44 was faster than her previous time on the course (19:51) and she ran a very heads-up smart race. She laid off the fast early going and was moving up all throughout the race. She was the last of the individual qualifiers to State and with that out of the way can relax and have the race of her Lovejoy career next weekend.
• Katherine Powell: In my estimation the performance of the day for the whole team (boys/girls) came from Katherine. We told her going into the meet she needed to be a difference maker for us and she came through huge!!! Her time of 20:32 is by far a huge PR for her and now sets her up nicely to be going under 19:00 as a Sr next year!!
• Carol Xia: Carol as well had the race of her season going 20:58 compared to her 21:26 in September. Carol is not blessed with a lot of speed, but she more than makes up for it with a toughness and grit on the course that few from other schools match. I was very proud of her race. She also now has the potential to be a sub 19:00 runner for us next year.
• Lauren Helsley: Lauren stepped up big for us as well. She ran her race plan to perfection and was moving up well through the pack late in the race. She has done a great job for us since being cleared to race. It has been a big shot in the arm for the team having her and she will only be getting better as she gets acclimated to our training system and Lovejoy tradition.
• Shaelyn Ballard: Shaelyn's race yesterday was not what she was hoping for but it was on a bum wheel and she did all she could do for the team ... after having not being able to get in the work on the roads, she has been a road warrior on the stationary bike and I felt like ran a great race. It would have been very easy for a runner in that circumstance to go easy, but she always puts the team and teammates first and does her best every workout/every race.
• Laci Eakins: Laci rounded out our scoring, but along with Katherine, I felt like she had one of the better races of the day. Laci ran 22:48 on the course in September and went 21:37 yesterday. That is a huge jump for a sophomore. I knew she was going to have a good race based on her workouts and she really came through for us. It was great to see that out of her and now for next year we'll be under 20:00 with Laci.

The girls team finished up in 6th place overall. As the racing was winding down I thought it was very close from places 4-6 with us/North ... and Forney surprised everyone by getting the nod at 4th place. All in all a very good showing for our girls as once again for the 7th year out of 8 we will be represented at the State meet by members of our girls team.

Boys Region II Championships:

All we needed to do yesterday was to qualify out. The Regional meet really doesn't mean anything as long as you're in a qualifying spot out to the State meet. Its nice to win it, but in the end you want to place well enough to race the following weekend. As the racing was winding down I felt like we were in a very good position against The Colony ... Wakeland had their 3 guys up front and then we were matched up well from there. After the race it was initially posted that we had won ... but a timing glitch didn't get 2 of the Colony's runners so they were able to get the Championship yesterday, with us in a close 2nd place. Kind of a letdown following thinking we had won it ... but the guys handled it very well I thought.

This will be the 7th year in a row the boys team will advance to the State Championships. The guys all had outstanding races. Noah improved from his 16:39 in September to 16:19. Will was 16:19 vs. 16:46 in Sept ... the trend continues ... Grant Tiff ran 16:54 earlier and ran 16:31 on the same course yesterday. Grant Ballard is really showing up big for us each race now as he turned in a 16:38. Was battling mono in September ... Freshman Ryan Brands really had a great performance for us and it was needed out of him for us to place as high as we did ... he ran 17:01 for us in September and 16:50 yesterday ... Hunter Joiner was a solid 6th for us at 17:37 and Sam Ruhala rounded out our racing at 18:06.

I feel like we had some good races but we can do better next weekend. We don't have the luxury of a big scorer up front, so we have to do a better job next week of pounding everyones 2-5 runners. Our strength all along has been the consistency at which these guys are able to run as a pack and that will be important for us next week ... should be fun.

We are going to have a very productive week of work and rest and I feel like we will have very good races out of the Tedder twins and the guys team to continue our tradition of success in Cross Country.

It was cool to see Conner Day there yesterday ... as one of our founding guys he was very pleased to see us racing as well at the 5A level as what he started at the 3A level. I feel like the guys have just as good of a shot at winning another State title as anyone next weekend. Chloe has a great shot at a top 10 finish, and Rachel should be in the hunt for a high finish as well.

I will be sending out State meet information later in the week ... Thank you to everyone who was able to attend yesterday. We always have such a large cheering contingent and it was also cool to see so many of the team out there as well ...

Workouts this Week:

• Today: Recovery/ice bath
• Monday: Uptempo spirited run
• Tuesday: Recovery
• Wednesday: 400s
• Thursday; Recovery/ice bath
• Friday: Travel to Round Rock/Shakeout on the course
• Saturday: State Cross Country Championships

Run Happy, Run Long

Greg

The Varsity Girls came up a little short of their goal to qualify for State as a team, but what a great consolation to have their two senior leaders representing them as individual State qualifiers. Running on an injured leg, Chloe Tedder finished #1 for Lovejoy in 19:19.12, somewhat off her 18:54.8 time from the Gerald Richey in September, but ahead of her 19:22.60 time from 2013 Regions. Chloe took 9th place overall and was the 3rd individual State qualifier. Rachel Tedder finished #2 for Lovejoy at 19:44.48, which was good enough for 24th place overall, and slid her into the 10th and final individual State qualifier slot. Rachel's time was a nice improvement over her 19:51.4 in September, and 20:46.48 at 2013 Regions. Katherine Powell may have locked up this year's most improved award with her #3 finish for Lovejoy in a time of 20:32.33. Her improvement might be hard to fully appreciate since she didn't run at Regions last year, and in September the JV girls only ran a 3200M course. But her time today was a definite 5K PR. Carol Xia finished #4 for the Leopards in 20:58.97, while Lauren Helsley was #5 in 21:12.06, her first championship race on Varsity. The girls order of finish was 7-19-39-45-52-55-71, with an average time of 20:21.30 and a split time of 1:52.54, which placed them 6th in team scoring at 162 points. The Colony girls won it with some nifty pack running, while Forney took Lovejoy's coveted 4th spot and earned a team trip to State by having their top two girls finish 1st and 2nd overall, which overcame their nail-biting order of finish (1-2-34-49-57).

Click the image below for a graphic on the girls race dynamics.

[results]

The level of competition at the 5A level is definitely a step up from what Lovejoy has experienced at Regions the past two years while at the 4A level. Last year the Highland Park girls posted the best average time of 19:42.64 in the 4A race, but that would have dropped them into 4th place at this year's 5A level. Similarly, Frisco Wakeland had a great average time of 16:34.28 to win last year's 4A boys Region Championship. But this year that would have placed them 4th in the 5A race.

The Varsity Boys finished in 2nd place behind The Colony with a score of 106 points in a very competitive race. The initially published race results showed that the Leopards had won the Boys Region II Championship, but apparently the scoring system had missed The Colony's #3 and #6 runners who finished between Lovejoy's #3 and #4 runners, and after Lovejoy's #5 runner respectively. When The Colony's coaches appealed, the race officials reviewed the video, changed the results, and allowed The Colony boys to vault Lovejoy and take 1st place. An unpleasant turn of events to be sure. But there's always next time, and that next time will be at State next Saturday.

Just like the old days, Noah Landguth and Will Wise kept playing tag throughout the race with Noah edging Will at the finish line by 0.44 seconds. Just to show how competitive Regions are, a Redwater runner managed to squeeze in between Noah and Will. Noah was 17th overall in 16:19.13 and Will finished 19th overall in 16:19.57. Grant Tiff had another solid race finishing 26th overall in 16:31.42. A continually improving Grant Ballard was 30th overall in 16:38.51, while Ryan Brands finished 40th overall in 16:50.73 to close out Lovejoy's scoring. The boys order of finish was 14-15-20-24-33-70-93. Their average time of 16:31.87 was a nice improvement over last year's 16:53.23. Their split time was a clean 31.60 seconds.

Click the image below for a graphic on the boys race dynamics.

[results]

Click here for the meet photo album.

Click here for the meet photo album.

Varsity Boys:

Seeing the pack of guys moving across the top of the park as a group was awesome. We need to be able to hold onto each other a little tighter now through the Region and State meets. Grant Tiff was our #1 this week and he came very close to being the overall champion. Very cool to see him step up and challenge. The rest of the guys had solid days and will be racing much faster now next weekend. (more on that)

JV Girls:

Lauren Helsley took over the race with about 800m to go and cruised to a very impressive victory. She ran a very smart race and will bolster our line up at Regionals. Hallie and Katie ran well together and Keirsten wasn't far off. Blair Lang rounded out our scoring also nurturing a sore foot. Prosper and McKinney North had a little more depth than our girls this year ... but we have help coming from our Middle Schoolers for the future ...

JV Boys:

Hunter Joiner took over the race through the early hills and never was challenged. It looked more like a team time trial than a District Championship. We came very close to a perfect score of 15 points, with 18. Ryan Spruell also had a great race as did Jake Larimer and Christian Sutter ...

To be honest there were so many athletes doing things on the course that its hard to single someone out w/o feeling like I'm leaving others out ... One of the coolest to see was Bradley Davis having his best race so far as a freshman ... the future of the program still looks as bright as it did in 2007 when we won our first district title on that course.

Some of our Varsity team members didn't have quite the races you would typically see out of them. I chose to train through this meet with having them do an uptempo 8-10 miles on Sunday. I was very certain we wouldn't have much trouble qualifying out, and getting that run in along with the race 2 days later really sets us up well now for what we need to do be ready for Regionals. Its nice to be able to put that much faith in the team and have them come through ... Now its time to rest and sharpen up.

looking ahead:

Our JV runners will now have a 2 week break. 1 week totally off, then a gradual return to training. Those going on to Regions/State will be getting in the work to finish off the team goals from Taos. In looking at results from other districts, I feel like the girls will have an excellent shot to qualify out. I feel like Prosper/Frisco Liberty are pretty good bets to qualify. From there add in McKinney North, The Colony, and our girls and it will make for an exciting day.

New rule changes now allow 4 teams and 10 individuals not on teams to qualify out. On the boys side, we will have The Colony, and Frisco Wakeland. My experience tells me that there will also be a team that runs exceptionally well, and others have flat days so we certainly don't want to count out anyone — but the boys are sitting pretty good I feel. After all the Districts have reported results I will be able to give a better look-see at next week's Region Championships.

Thank you to everyone who attended yesterday and who have supported us all season to this point. Now is when the season really gets to cranking so we hope we have a huge turnout at Regionals November 1.

Run Happy, Run Long

Greg

The consistently excellent performance of Lovejoy's boys — both Varsity and JV — provided one of the day's best highlights. The Varsity Boys handily took 1st place in their race besting McKinney North and Wylie by a score of 38-64-69 with 4 Leopard runners cracking the top 10, and our #5 finishing 12th overall. Noah Landguth had his usual excellent race finishing 6th overall in 16:58.05 (compared with 17:09.00 last fall). Noah has become the squad's benchmark against which our other boys' performances can be measured. And today, Grant Tiff measured up extremely well finishing 2nd overall in 16:42.41 (versus 17:37.00 in 2013). Grant dueled a Wylie East runner throughout the race for the individual championship, and missed out at the finish by a mere 2.23 seconds. Will Wise followed Noah by 7.00 seconds to finish 8th overall in 17:05.05 (17:32.00 in 2013), Grant Ballard finished 10th overall in 17:16.71 (16:27.00 in 2013), and then Sam Ruhala capped the scoring by finishing 12th overall in 17:24.04 (19:59.00 in 2013 — a 1:34.96 improvement). Ryan Brands (14th in 17:38.10) and Jacob Myers (25th in 18:07.98) played spoiler adding points to opponents' scores. During the awards ceremony, opposing teams and fans grew quieter as they noticed the number of Lovejoy boys receiving individual medals for the Varsity Boys race.

The exclamation point came with the JV Boys performance in placing 7 runners in the top 10 8 and scoring an incredibly low 18 points compared to 2nd-place finisher McKinney North's 68 points, and 3rd-place finisher Wylie's 97 points. The opposition went dead silent during the awards ceremony as the final individual medals and JV Championship trophy were graciously gobbled up by the Leopards. A realization had dawned on the other schools that it will be a very, very long time before the Lovejoy boys surrender their District Cross Country Championship titles, Varsity or JV. Hunter Joiner took the lead about midway through the race and was not challenged again. He finished first overall winning the District Cross Country Individual JV Boys Championship in 17:28.84 (18:07.00 last fall). Ryan Spruell sprinted past a Wylie runner at the finish to take 2nd place overall in 17:36.70. The answer to the trivia question is Ryan Rigby. The question is who was the Wylie runner who broke up the Lovejoy JV Boys uber-pack and prevented a perfect score of 15 points. After he finished, the next 5 runners in were Leopards: Dane Printz 4th overall in 17:52.22 (18:51.00 in 2013), Christian Sutter 5th overall in 18:00.88, Jake Larimer 6th overall in 18:22.33, Kerry Joiner 7th overall in 18:32.53 (19:20.00 in 2013), and Brock Bittner 8th overall in 18:51.99 (18:47.00 in 2013).

Varsity Boys place school score avg time split   1. Lovejoy 38 17:05.25 0:41.63 2. McKinney North 64 17:28.36 1:16.75 3. Wylie 69 17:29.58 1:05.89 4. McKinney 120 18:03.94 1:06.32 5. Prosper 121 18:01.38 1:34.53 6. Wylie East 125 18:06.95 2:31.16 7. Sherman 172 18:31.38 0:37.59 8. Denison 246 19:51.15 1:07.86 [results]

JV Boys place school score avg time split   1. Lovejoy 18 17:52.19 0:53.49 2. McKinney North 68 19:15.29 0:35.54 3. Wylie 97 19:34.02 2:53.03 4. Sherman 108 19:53.30 1:28.19 5. McKinney 119 20:02.76 1:26.48 6. Prosper 150 20:40.12 2:43.41 7. Wylie East 172 20:57.70 1:38.00 —  Denison < 5 — — [results]

The Tedder sisters had another banner day for the Lovejoy Varsity Girls. Chloe literally ran Prosper's #1 girl into the ground, a thrashing not seen since Katie Ruhala smoked Argyle's Colbea Harris to win the Girls 1600 Meter State Title in May 2010. Chloe ran strong and true throughout the race as is her style finishing in 19:08.88 (19:59.00 in 2013) to secure the District Cross Country Individual Varsity Girls Championship by a margin of 31.38 seconds. Rachel had a top-10 finish at 8th overall in 20:17.15 (21:36.00 in 2013 — a 1:17.85 improvement), and broke up the McKinney North pack just as the coaches planned. Shaelyn Ballard was close to the top 10 with a 12th-place finish in 20:46.34 (21:42.00 in 2013). Carol Xia had a good race finishing 21st overall in 21:42.63 (22:29.00 in 2013), and Katherine Powell finished the scoring at 24th overall in 22:08.46 (24:22.00 in 2013 — a 2:13.56 improvement). The girls' order of finish was 1-8-12-21-24-31-47, and the split time of 2:59.58 mostly looks bad because Chloe was so far out in front of the rest of the field. With a 3rd-place finish, the Varsity Girls will compete at Region.

Lauren Helsley proved a magnificent sparkle for the JV Girls taking the District Cross Country Individual JV Girls Championship with a time of 21:56.16. Unfortunately, the rest of the Lovejoy girls were a bit slower than hoped, which ended their 6-year reign as District JV Girls Champions. Two other bright spots were Hallie Fischer and Katie Albers dueling it out at the finish. Hallie ended with a 0.61-second advantage finishing 11th overall in 23:52.34 (24:39.00 in 2013), with Katie finishing 12th in 23:52.95. Lovejoy's order of finish was a respectable 1-11-12-14-16-17-18, but McKinney and McKinney North both threw in slightly stronger pack running that cost Lovejoy and accounted for the Leopards' 17-point overage.

Varsity Girls place school score avg time split   1. Prosper 36 20:16.42 1:12.91 2. McKinney North 39 20:20.99 1:00.93 3. Lovejoy 66 20:48.69 2:59.58 4. McKinney 88 21:19.95 0:56.30 5. Wylie East 133 22:33.12 2:57.41 6. Sherman 199 24:00.01 1:18.466 7. Denison 200 24:38.11 5:31.43 8. Wylie 211 24:24.92 1:57.87 [results]

JV Girls place school score avg time split   1. McKinney 37 22:59.72 2:18.86 2. McKinney North 47 23:31.82 1:09.49 3. Lovejoy 54 23:41.00 2:29.24 4. Prosper 107 25:19.54 4:23.49 5. Wylie East 119 25:48.20 2:25.28 6. Sherman 179 27:36.78 1:21.60 [results]

Click here for the meet photo album.

race	12-Oct-2013	11-Oct-2014
Varsity Girls	[results]	[results]
Varsity Boys	[results]	[results]
JV Girls	[results]	[results]
JV Boys	[results]	[results]

Varsity Girls:

I asked the girls to hold off the fast opening mile and to bide their time moving up through the pack and they did a great job of that. Chloe was able to run down the race's early leader and by the 2 mile mark had a comfortable lead that she didn't relinquish. Rachel had a huge meet from last year improving -1:06 ... Shaelyn ran a controlled race and although didn't race as fast as last season, placed in the top 10 in a much more competitive race from last year. Katherine Powell as I said had a great race and I feel is going to be a huge factor for us at District. Laci Eakins ran faster than last season as well and I feel like is also making gains to have us in a good position going into the post season. Emily and Bella gained valuable experience again at the varsity level. These 2 freshmen are going to be having good races as Leopards for years to come.

Varsity Boys:

Going out controlled we let the Timber Creek guys go ... My race plan for the day was to have all 7 under 17:00. We didn't quite get there, but we had much improved races on the day from last season. 4 of the guys were well under 17:00 and Sam and Ryan weren't far off. In comparison to last season, Grant was our only runner under 17:00 (15:42). I felt like the guys raced really well as a pack, and when we have a couple more weeks of work under our belts, we'll be ready to go out under 5:10/mile and hold it. It's going to be a lot of fun to watch the red/black striped singlets up front. Will Wise, Noah, and Grant Tiff are really running well as a pack right now. Sam had a bit of an off day (as runners will have from time to time) but he and Ryan will be there when it counts.

Having Grant Ballard back in the pack gives us a huge boost depth-wise. And what is nice about the boys team is that its difficult from week to week to predict who will be our top guy s... That is when you truly have a deep team.

JV Girls:

Keirsten led the charge for the JV girls with Hallie and Katie Albers in close behind. These 3 will more than likely round out our varsity roster of 10 for District. At the district Championships, we really need to work on not settling in a race. We need to be constantly working on passing and being aggressive. Fortunately, our district isn't as deep as Timber Creek's squad. Our JV girls have never lost a District Championship. I'm counting on the girls to keep the string of championships going ...

JV Boys:

In looking at the JV boys results, it looks like team time trials. All the 3 top schools came in bunched together ... Like the varsity guys, we had some guys really step up and race well ... Dane Printz, Hunter Joiner, Jake Larrimer, and Christian Sutter, followed closely by Ryan Spruell rounded out our scoring. But this year's JV group could've come close to beating last year's varsity guys at this meet. Definitely a good bunch of hard working guys who are starting to see their long months of work pay off. I really like the mindset of the JV guys who each workout are working to get better ... which only makes our varsity group better.

If you look and compare race results from last year to this year...keep in mind:

1. last year was a dry/fast course
2. this year the course was changed in a couple of places adding sharper corners

Looking ahead:

Our next race coming up is the District 10-5A Cross Country Championships Tuesday October 21. We have a trend going in that meet that I don't know if very many schools state-wide can match. Our boys varsity team has never lost a district championship. They are undefeated as a team in the schools (brief) history. Our JV teams as well have never been defeated at a District level. I'm expecting those 3 teams to win out again at District. Our Varsity girls team has the ability to come out as District champions as well if we have 7 girls all clicking on the same day. However I feel very confident that they will be racing at the Region Championships November 1.

We are currently in our Championship phase of our training. We are hitting the speedwork hard and as a result some of the runner's legs may have felt a bit heavy yesterday. That's fine and what I want. It takes on average 7-12 days for any one workout to provide the intended benefit. At the district meet on, we should start seeing the speedwork and rest pay off. We are very fortunate that both of our teams are extremely healthy right now. That will be my focus is to keep them healthy and racing fast.

Workout Week:

• Monday: Recovery OYO
• Tuesday: Spirited recovery
• Wednesday: Milers
• Thursday: Recovery
• Friday: 8x400
• Saturday: Recovery
• Sunday: Recovery for JV ... 3/4 long for Varsity

Monday:

Because of the off day from school and the fact that the workout is an easy recovery day, we will NOT be meeting as a team tomorrow.

I hope everyone is enjoying the Columbus Day weekend. I always enjoy this holiday spending time with friends and family watching the Columbus Day movie marathons, opening our Columbus Day gifts ...

Run happy, Run Long

Greg

For the Varsity Girls, Chloe Tedder finished 1st overall in 19:03.31 with a 10-second margin of victory. Rachel Tedder finished a strong 4th overall in 19:41.38 missing 3rd place by only 1.69 seconds. Shaelyn Ballard also provided a top-10 finish in 20:45.15. With Carol Xia out today, Katherine Powell slid in as Lovejoy’s #4 finishing 17th in 21:26.69. The top 4 staked the Girls Varsity to a nice total of only 31 points, so when Emily Gueller came in 27th (22:23.18) with Laci Eakins immediately behind her in 28th place (22:37.12), the girls settled comfortably into 2nd place with 54 points behind 1st place Timber Creek and its 28 points. Our girls order of finish was 1-4-10-17-27-28-35 in a 38-girl field. The #1 to #5 split time was 3:19.87.

Lovejoy's Varsity Boys put in a very solid performance, but with Keller Timber Creek winning the top 3 spots, and placing all 5 of their scorers in the top 10, Lovejoy was left fighting for 2nd place. Will Wise finished #1 for the Leopards today placing 5th overall in 16:26.47. Noah Landguth finished 2.5 seconds later in 16:28.97. And then came the day's biggest and most pleasant surprise — Grant Ballard finishing #3 and 8th overall in 16:36.09. Many of the Leopard Faithful had wondered when and how Grant B would re-emerge in the Varsity Boys' line-up, but few expected such quick and meaningful success. A great statement by the senior. Grant Tiff finished 11th overall in 16:40.4 giving Lovejoy 4 runners under 17:00 minutes. Sam Ruhala capped the scoring finishing 16th in 17:05.69. Not to be outdone, Ryan Brands and Jacob Myers finished 20th/21st in 17:19.84/17:20.43, which put all 7 of Lovejoy's Varsity Boys under the 17:30 mark. The order of finish was 5-6-8-11-16-20-21 with a split time of 0:39.22. Very nice numbers headed into District.

Varsity Girls place conf school score avg time split   1. 6A Keller Timber Creek 28 20:04.20 1:19.25 2. 5A Lovejoy 54 20:39.95 3:19.87 3. 5A FW Chisholm Trail 61 20:51.73 2:09.43 4. 6A Keller Central 72 21:06.49 0:47.00 5. 6A North Garland 139 23:20.29 2:41.47 [results]

Varsity Boys place conf school score avg time split   1. 6A Keller Timber Creek 22 16:17.71 0:56.75 2. 5A Lovejoy 46 16:39.74 0:39.22 3. 6A Keller Central 77 16:59.48 1:08.47 4. 5A Frisco Centennial 143 18:06.25 1:42.32 5. 5A FW Chisholm Trail 147 18:09.25 2:35.43 6. 5A Dallas Adamson 154 18:14.25 2:16.50 7. 6A Keller Fossil Ridge 171 18:25.60 1:40.25 8. 5A Everman 206 19:12.41 3:22.64 9. 6A North Garland 207 19:05.37 1:26.41 [results]

The JV Girls squad sported some guest runners with several of Willow Spring's choice harriers mixing it up with the LHS girls. As the expression goes, youth will be served: 3 WSMS girls secured top-10 finishes and gave Timber Creek its biggest scare of the meet. Reagan Matacale finished 2nd overall in 20:22.15 — only 1.46 seconds behind the longer-legged winner from Timber Creek. Carson Hockersmith finished 6th in 20:48.06 with Juliette Pages 7th in 21:07.78. Veterans Keirsten Lindelof and Hallie Fischer completed the scoring finishing 16th/18th in 22:18.25/22:26.03. The JV Girls order of finish was 2-6-7-16-18-24-25 with a split time of 2:03.88.

The JV Boys were out in force today, but the Keller high schools were out for blood in a Junior Varsity intra-district smackdown. The rivals engaged in an unusual amount of woofing at the starting line of the JV Boys race, and continued the competition through to the finish line using their legs. The Leopards' numbers looked fine, it's just that Timber Creek and Central had slightly better ones. And Lovejoy's pack running has never been finer with our top 7 boys finishing in an unbroken line from 11th to 17th place with an unheard of split time of 0:17.40 — really! The scorers were Dane Printz (17:30.44), Hunter Joiner (17:35.15), newcomer Jake Larimer (17:45.91), Christian Sutter (17:46.25), and Ryan Spruel (17:47.84). Nate Hartter (17:52.56) and Brock Bittner (18:01.03) provided nice insurance and bumped up Keller Central's score. The boys #1 to #7 split time was a meager 30.59 seconds. Truly great work even though the squad only finished 3rd in team scoring.

JV Girls place conf school score avg time split   1. 6A Keller Timber Creek 21 20:39.86 0:49.93 2. 5A Lovejoy 42 21:24.46 2:03.88 3. 6A Keller Central 82 22:59.67 3:05.44 4. 5A Everman 143 24:58.07 2:26.56 5. 5A Dallas Adamson 155 25:28.11 3:44.98 6. 6A North Garland 173 25:44.69 1:02.85 7. 5A Frisco Centennial 175 25:50.59 4:41.75 8. 6A Keller Fossil Ridge 194 26:33.69 3:36.19 [results]

JV Boys place conf school score avg time split   1. 6A Keller Timber Creek 23 17:07.93 0:29.72 2. 6A Keller Central 41 17:26.75 1:12.97 3. 5A Lovejoy 65 17:41.12 0:17.40 4. 5A Dallas Adamson 143 19:28.80 0:48.18 5. 5A FW Chisholm Trail 152 20:01.91 1:49.24 6. 6A Keller Fossil Ridge 189 21:03.72 3:03.09 7. 5A Frisco Centennial 195 21:08.50 2:42.65 8. 6A North Garland 196 21:07.33 4:21.96 [results]

Click here to see the meet photo album. All photos have been uploaded.

Click here to see the meet photo album. All photos have been uploaded.

Going into the day I was hoping for a few of the guys to be in under 36:00, but to have 4 under 35 and Ballard right at 35 was huge!!! We are much farther along I feel with the boys team than we were at this point last season.

Chloe and Rachel continue running great with Chloe in around 40:00 and Rachel about a minute behind. The rest of the girls got in the valuable work we were looking for ... one last really tough aerobic effort before we become speed merchants. It was an excellent day - I would say our best ever in Fayetteville as the announcers seemed to be pretty excited about our teams ...

Several of our team alums were present as Kendall Joiner and Joe Brands raced in the open division, and Kelsey Rea competed for her John Brown University team.

Meet Results: www.chilepepperfestival.org/race/event-results/

Celina:

In looking over the race results it was exactly what I was hoping for. When the athletes have a chance to rise up and compete at the Varsity level, we are seldom disappointed. We had almost everyone having huge PR's and great days on the course. Madison Hodge is an example of that in completing her first race ... very cool.

• Varsity Girls results
• Varsity Boys results
• JV Girls results
• JV Boys results
• Junior High Girls results
• Junior High Boys results

We will next be racing our full strength squads at Keller next weekend. The course is pretty flat and will give us some good data to work off of going into the district meet.

Meets State Wide:

In keeping up with other teams around the State. On the boys side I wasn't really impressed with anyone. Stratford had the weekend off and Grapevine didn't have a very good day at Round Rock.

On the girls side, Prosper won the Round Rock 5A race so they are going to be tough at District, as is McKinney North as they had several girls run well too.

Still - its early October ... both our squads have work to do to get better and time to do it ...

Workout Schedule:

• Monday: Recovery
• Tuesday: Spirited Recovery
• Wednesday: 800/400
• Thursday: Recovery
• Friday: Shakeout
• Saturday: Keller Invitational
• Sunday: Long/Easy

Booster Club:

We will have our meeting Tuesday evening at 7:00 in the Lecture Hall.

Run happy, Run Long

Greg

Varsity Girls:

If we had measured the race course to a full 5k Chloe would have had enough room to rundown the Plano West girl ... as it was she was 2 seconds short. She did an awesome job of closing on her over the last 800m. Rachel had another solid race too. These two give us a very solid presence at the front of a race. From there we fall off too far, but we are getting better. Shaelyn and Carol and getting their times down to where we need them. And I thought Katherine Powell had a very good day on the course. To be the team we talked about being in Taos we are we are going to have to have 4 girls under 20:00 at Regionals and our 5th girls not far off from that. We are starting to get our workouts cranking towards that and I'm confident that over the next 4 weeks we'll get the work in to get them there ...

Varsity Boys:

Coming off the line I thought we were set up very well for the tight turn 200m into the race. By the time they came by me at the 1 mile we looked exactly like I wanted them to be ... all 7-8 guys running tight. I think we fell off from that due to the fast start. We will be able to hold on to that effort off the line as our speedwork takes hold and gets into the system. Noah, Grant, Sam Will all looked great. Dane Printz had an outstanding day on a very technical course ... very good to see. Grant Ballard is back and did a tempo effort on the race course and reported it went very well. When we get our #1 back from last year racing again our boys team will definitely have a different look. As George Strait says, "You've got to have an ace in the hole" ...

JV Girls and JV Boys:

I was very pleased with how both groups got out and raced as the morning was starting to heat up ... it made for a very different race than what the varsity groups raced in ... but I thought Keirsten, Elizabeth, and two girls running their first ever races, Katie Albers and Marianne Allahham had very good races and will only get better.

The JV guys led by Kerry Joiner and Christian Sutter battled the HP group of guys very tough ... Our JV boys group is very deep and would be most schools varsity group. Our team depth on the boys side is very impressive ... !!!

Here is the link to complete results:

www.racechiptiming.com/files/lovejoyxc2014.htm

This week we split our squads with some going to Fayetteville and some going to the meet at Norbuck Park in Dallas hosted by Jesuit ... this is always a fun time for the ones who need a shot at a varsity race to show what they can do ...

Training Week:

• Monday: Banger
• Tuesday: Recovery/buildups
• Wednesday: Milers
• Thursday: Recovery
• Friday: Shakeout
• Saturday: Chile Pepper (10k)/Jesuit
• Sunday: Long/Easy

Again, thank you all so much for all the work put into the meet ... I hope the experience for you was as fun as it was for the people who attended.

Have a great week,

Run happy, Run Long

Greg

The 5A/6A Varsity girls race started the meet after an abbreviated Open 5K run. Chloe Tedder delivered as strong a performance as she has ever given. Once again battling it out for 1st place right up to the end, she finished 2nd overall by only 3.8 seconds. Chloe had an overall time of 18:58.3 (6:07 mile pace). Then came Rachel Tedder at 19:59.5 (6:29 pace) finishing 13th overall and #2 for Lovejoy. Sophomore Shaelyn Ballard gave another steady performance finishing 31st overall at 20:48.5 (6:46 pace). The pack came in closer behind the leaders this meet with a split time of only 2:41.1 showing reasonable improvement. The girls scored in order 2-13-29-34-41-50-57 with Lauren Helsley finishing in Lovejoy's top 7 unofficially, but without a bib/chip she did not register with the scoring system. Lovejoy's coaches ran 13 girls in the Varsity race so some Varsity newcomers like Bella Gaccione, Tate Thompson, and Sophi Desjardins got a taste of their first Varsity action and performed well.

The real Prosper Varsity girls squad showed up today (mostly) and finally lived up to their pre-season hype. Without their top runner who was away on a college recruiting visit, they finished as a strong 2nd to Plano West and will be tough to beat at the District Championships. Former Lovejoy Assistant Coach Josh Allen who now heads the Prosper XC program may finally get a State appearance for his girls squad.

The Varsity boys continued and even extended their successful approach to pack running. While their split time was 33.6 seconds between runners #1 and #5, the elapsed time between #1 and #10 runner was a meager 1:37.1 meaning all of the Varsity boys are getting faster. How much longer will it be before #1 runner Noah Landguth gets cleated in a stampede of teammates who finally catch up with him? Noah lead the Varsity boys again today finishing 11th overall at 16:20.3. Per usual, Will Wise was nipping at Noah's heels the whole race, but finished #3 in 16:34.5 because a now healthy Grant Tiff came in even closer behind Noah as #2 in 16:29.0. Sam Ruhala was on Noah the whole race, but fell a little behind in the last 500 meters and finished #4 in 16:37.8. And then Dane Printz making his Varsity debut this season finished #5 in 16:53.9. The Varsity boys finished in order 11-16-21-24-32-36-42, and finished in 3rd place behind 2nd place Dallas Highland Park by only 7 points. Freshman Ryan Spruell ran Varsity for the first time ever. And there was a Ballard sighting today: Grant was spotted during a pre-dawn training run, and showing great form with about 350 meters left.

5A/6A Varsity Girls place conf school score avg time split   1. 6A Plano West 45 19:38.2 1:12.2 2. 5A Prosper 70 19:55.4 1:35.0 3. 6A Plano 104 20:23.1 1:08.3 4. 5A Frisco 116 20:33.2 2:02.6 5. 5A Lovejoy 119 20:34.0 2:41.1 6. 4A Kaufman 139 20:50.0 1:20.9 7. 6A Irving Nimitz 146 21:00.0 2:31.9 8. 5A Wylie East 204 21:48.3 2:05.7 9. 5A Mesquite Poteet 281 23:06.0 6:58.0 10. 6A Lake Highlands 286 22:49.3 1:14.7 11. 5A Sherman 303 23:11.8 1:47.0 12. 6A Lakeview Central 349 24:53.1 7:40.2 13. TAPPS Legacy Christian 432 30:43.2 5:34.0 [results]

5A/6A Varsity Boys place conf school score avg time split   1. 6A Plano West 61 16:13.4 1:12.1 2. 6A Dallas Highland Park 97 16:22.8 1:37.7 3. 5A Lovejoy 104 16:35.1 0:33.6 4. 6A Plano 138 16:47.3 1:34.5 5. 6A Plano East 152 16:46.3 2:55.0 6. 5A Wylie 166 16:54.3 1:26.5 7. 4A Kaufman 194 17:05.1 1:44.3 8. 5A Wylie East 277 17:37.2 2:51.8 9. 5A Mesquite Poteet 279 17:34.6 2:06.9 10. 5A Frisco 292 17:39.4 1:38.9 11. 5A Prosper 313 17:45.3 0:59.3 12. 5A Frisco Centennial 337 17:58.1 2:01.1 13. 6A Lake Highlands 350 18:18.4 3:36.5 14. 6A Carrollton Turner 350 18:08.5 3:16.8 15. 5A Sherman 356 18:03.1 0:41.5 16. 6A Irving Nimitz 433 18:41.0 1:56.0 17. TAPPS Legacy Christian 589 21:15.5 1:38.8 [results]

The JV girls ran the full 5K (or 4,850 meters to be more precise) for the first time this year on the difficult Myers Park XC course. So the results are encouraging especially considering that the Varsity was overloaded with 13 runners and some other JV veterans chose not to run. Keirsten Lindelof finished #1 in 23:33.5 while Elizabeth Britton finished #2 in 24:18.2. While the Plano West JV girls came in 1st with a perfect score of 15 points, Lovejoy finished in 2nd place ahead of Wylie East, Prosper and Sherman among others.

For the JV boys it was more fun fun fun. Like the JV girls, they had a somewhat depleted squad with the larger Varsity boys squad of 10 runners, but the JVers still came up roses finishing in 2nd place behind Dallas Highland Park. The whole squad was tight with only a 53.5 split time. #1 Kerry Joiner led the JV boys finishing 4th overall in 18:09.9. He was followed quickly by Christian Sutter at 5th overall (in 18:15.3) and then Brock Bittner at 11th overall (in 18:40.5). The JV boys finished in order 4-5-11-12-16-21-24 with an average time of 18:34.1 for their top 5.

JV Girls place conf school score avg time split   1. 6A Plano West 15 21:32.3 0:54.5 2. 5A Lovejoy 99 24:35.4 1:56.8 3. 5A Wylie East 164 25:49.1 3:59.8 4. 5A Prosper 175 26:13.7 1:38.0 5. 6A Lake Highlands 199 26:34.3 4:04.4 6. 5A Sherman 237 27:13.4 3:37.4 7. TAPPS Lutheran 289 28:19.3 5:43.7 8. 5A Frisco Centennial 348 29:51.7 10:19.7 9. 3A Caddo Mills 427 32:54.6 9:56.2 [results]

JV Boys place conf school score avg time split   1. 6A Dallas Highland Park 21 18:15.2 0:29.9 2. 5A Lovejoy 48 18:34.1 0:53.5 3. 6A Plano 84 19:03.4 1:09.2 4. 5A Wylie 111 19:21.2 1:49.6 5. 5A Sherman 164 20:01.7 1:23.7 6. 5A Prosper 175 19:57.1 2:14.6 7. 6A Lake Highlands 248 20:50.2 0:30.2 8. 3A Pottsboro 248 20:41.8 2:19.8 9. 5A Wylie East 337 21:29.3 1:06.5 10. 5A Frisco Centennial 337 21:22.8 2:46.7 11. 6A Irving Nimitz 381 21:54.6 2:16.1 12. TAPPS Lutheran 381 21:57.1 3:36.3 13. 6A Plano East 386 22:29.4 6:00.2 [results]

The Willow Spring Middle School harriers made their second appearance at Myers Park this season and showed some successful, aggressive running that netted both the girls and boys 1st place finishes. The girls were led by Carson Hockersmith who finished 3rd overall in 13:52.7 for the 2-mile course, while Juliette Page finished 4th overall and #2 in 14:03.6. Their scoring order was 3-4-10-11-12-14-24 with an average time of 14:34.9. The boys were led by Triston Read who finished 2nd overall in 12:01.9, and Anthony Rodriguez who finished 5th overall at 12:42.9. The boys scoring order was 2-5-11-29-32-34-36 with an average time of 13:20.5.

Middle School Girls place conf school score avg time split   1. 5A Lovejoy 40 14:34.9 1:08.9 2. 5A Prosper 59 14:52.5 1:11.2 3. 4A Decatur 173 16:17.6 1:13.9 4. 5A Dennison B McDaniel 176 16:18.1 1:21.7 5. 4A Celina 177 16:12.8 3:21.5 6. 3A Caddo Mills 188 16:21.8 7:36.3 7. TAPPS McKinney Christian 267 17:30.8 8:08.6 8. 3A Pottsboro 347 18:25.6 5:53.6 9. TAPPS Imagine International 371 18:29.4 7:28.0 [results]

Middle School Boys place conf school score avg time split   1. 5A Lovejoy 48 13:12.5 2:01.7 2. 4A Decatur 70 13:20.5 2:28.0 3. 4A Celina 76 13:35.8 1:43.4 4. 5A Prosper 84 13:46.6 0:31.4 5. 3A Caddo Mills 176 14:39.6 3:06.9 6. 4A Bonham LH Rather 238 15:06.8 4:16.0 7. TAPPS McKinney Christian 243 15:18.9 3:41.9 8. 3A Pottsboro 281 16:12.9 5:07.2 9. 3A Van Alstyne 322 16:26.6 5:30.2 [results]

All photos have been uploaded to the meet photo albums.

• Click here for the LHS photo album.
• Click here for the WSMS photo album.

I felt like we are about where I thought we would be with our varsity girls ... strong top 3-4 with spots open for girls to solidify our top 7. We have time to get it done ... and we will. The girls finished 4th, with The Colony in 2nd.

Varsity Boys:

The guys had a pretty good opener, but we can do better. Noah Landguth was our top finisher at 16:37 (16:57) followed by Will Wise 16:46 (18:12). Sophomore Grant Tiff running with a lung infection had a great race under the circumstances in 16:54 (18:40). Freshman Ryan Brands had one of the best performances of the day at 17:01. Sam Ruhala was next at 17:12 (20:08). Jacob Myers followed Sam in 17:42 (19:18), and Nathan Hartter rounded out our finishers in 17:59.

I feel its pretty impressive to see the times turned in last season and compare to this year's times to see proof of how hard both the teams have worked over the last season. The guys will be racing much better as a team once Grant is 100%, and Sam has a complete race. I fully expect our top 7 guys to be under 16:30 by Regionals in November. The Colony, running their 3rd race of the season beat us 67-99.

JV Girls:

Race organizers ran all the JV together, and to accommodate the shorter racing distance run by lower divisions, all the girls ran a two mile. Not exactly what we were hoping for but we can use these times to compare to our time trial a few weeks ago and the results were awesome. New-comer Lauren Helsley led our JV charge in 13:12 (14:20 time trial). Katherine Powell 13:25 (15:00) and freshman Bella Gaccione 13:52 (15:06) were our next two finishers. Hallie Fisher 14:01 (15:07) and freshman Sophia DesJardines 14:12 (dnr) rounded out our scoring ... The JV girls were 2nd place behind Austin Westlake.

JV Boys:

Along with Ryan Brands in the Varsity division, another freshman Ryan Spruell had an awesome opening day as a Lovejoy Leopard by winning the JV boys race in 17:22. He was followed in closely by Hunter Joiner 17:27 who led the majority of the race. Our 3rd JV finisher was Dane Printz in 18:06 followed by Brock Bittner 18:12 and freshman Christian Sutter 18:14 to finish our JV scoring. Our JV boys were bested by 1 point by Keller Central 43-44.

The Take Away from the Meet:

Comparatively speaking we are much farther along than this time last season. The race conditions last year were a bit steamier, but nonetheless we are running tougher this year. The Colony looks as though they will be a challenge by the next time we see them at Regionals. But by looking at this opening meet, and going back to the Varsity Girls Taos team goal of qualifying out to State, and the Boys Varsity Taos team goal of winning the State Title – I don't see anything that makes me think those goals need to be rethought.

• complete meet results: 13-Sep-2014 tx.milesplit.com
• last season's meet results: 14-Sep-2013 tx.milesplit.com

Parent Meeting for Lovejoy Fall XC Fest:

Tuesday evening at 7 we will meet in the Fieldhouse meeting room LHS Room B100to discuss the Fall XC festival and to begin looking at our needs to make sure we have everything covered. The band will be providing the drum line so it should make for a lot of fun.

Training week ahead:

• Mon — banger
• Tue — recovery/buildups
• Wed — Fartlek
• Thu — recovery/buildups
• Fri — threshold
• Sat — off/recovery
• Sun — long/easy

It was good to get our racing season going ... now our team takes on a whole new feel as the team members have a taste of racing which adds some purpose to the workouts ... In a couple weeks we shift to more speed-oriented workouts and coupled with the results you've seen above from last year, it's going to be a lot of fun. One thing to keep in mind on the boys team is that Grant Ballard our top runner from last season is getting back into his training from his bout with mono ... if he can return to anything close to the season he had last year – we'll be very tough to beat ... it will be fun to watch.

Run happy, Run Long

Greg

The meet started with the Varsity girls. While Lovejoy mostly followed the convention of entering only 7 runners in the Varsity races, several other school loaded up their squads. Lovejoy ran 8 girls in the Varsity girls D1 race against some Region-quality competition such as 6A Austin Westlake (10 runners), 5A The Colony (8 runners), and 6A Belton (35 runners — no kidding) who all finished ahead of our girls' 4th place finish. Encouragingly, Lovejoy finished ahead of Forney, Irving Nimitz, and Wylie East among others. Prosper's "Varsity girls" also ran, but did not have enough runners cross the finish line to register a score.

Senior Chloe Tedder had a monster run to start the season finishing 3rd overall in 18:54.8, only 3.1 seconds behind the overall winner — a close race. Senior Rachel Tedder was on the heels of the leaders the whole race and finished 10th in 19:51.4. Sophomore Shaelyn Ballard finished a bit farther back at 30th in 20:44.4. A great start to a sophomore season where a lot of growth typically occurs by District. Carol Xia finished 43rd in 21:26.2. A noticeable work-on for the Varsity girls is compressing the split time between their #1 and #5 runners — 3:17.8 today. But the girls' average time of 20:37.9 was a good improvement over last year's 20:56.4 at the Gerald Richey.

The Varsity boys picked up right where they left off at State last November with a strong 2nd place finish to The Colony which ran 11 boys to Lovejoy's 7. The Leopard's split time in the race was only 32.2 seconds, a scant difference from their Runner-Up finish at State when their split time was 29.0 seconds. The Varsity boys are running a tight pack, and that's how you win in Cross Country. The race was particularly fast at the start with two runners dueling it out while the rest of the field struggled to keep up. The Lovejoy boys were in the thick of it, but that's because they were following the race plan. All of them were checking their watches at appropriate distance points throughout the race to measure their progress against the plan. Very disciplined team running. Junior Noah Landguth led the squad finishing 11th overall in 16:39.8, followed closely by Will Wise who was 15th in 16:46.3. Grant Tiff (20th in 16:54.5) and Ryan Brands (23rd in 17:01.0) came next, with Sam Ruhala (30th in 17:12.0) closing out the scoring. The boys finished in orders 11-15-20-23-30-55-69 with an average time of 16:54.7 for #1 through #5. That compares with last year's average time of 17:28.0 on September 14, 2013 — so the Varsity boys averaged 33.3 seconds faster today. Admittedly running conditions were ideal this morning, but that's still a big improvement. And, oh yeah, Grant Ballard was not even in the line-up today. And, oh yeah, there's this platoon of hungry JV boy runners aiming for Varsity slots (more on this later).

Varsity Girls place conf school score avg time split   1. 6A Austin Westlake 65 19:48.4 1:32.9 2. 5A The Colony 70 19:58.3 0:59.7 3. 6A Belton 114 20:21.0 1:29.6 4. 5A Lovejoy 144 20:37.9 3:17.8 5. 6A Cedar Ridge 153 20:47.1 1:29.6 6. 5A Forney 160 20:45.2 2:58.9 7. 6A Irving Nimitz 200 21:16.7 2:34.7 8. 5A Frisco Independence 222 21:29.4 2:30.9 9. 6A Keller Central 235 21:36.0 1:14.7 10. 5A Wylie East 283 22:05.4 2:28.5 11. 6A Mesquite 341 22:51.6 3:20.2 12. TAPPS Prince of Peace 343 23:00.2 4:48.9 13. 5A Arlington Heights 343 23:15.8 7:17.3 14. 5A Waxahachie 363 22:58.3 2:43.6 15. 6A Richardson 364 23:08.9 4:20.0 16. 5A Red Oak 408 23:42.5 3:19.9 [team results] [overall results]

Varsity Boys place conf school score avg time split   1. 5A The Colony 67 16:41.5 0:36.0 2. 5A Lovejoy 99 16:54.7 0:32.2 3. 5A Arlington Heights 146 17:04.2 1:08.2 4. 6A Keller Central 155 17:06.8 1:09.9 5. 6A Austin Westlake 189 17:14.6 1:28.0 6. 4A Sanger 207 17:24.6 0:54.2 7. 6A North Crowley 237 17:32.0 0:54.2 8. 5A Dallas Adamson 259 17:31.2 2:36.6 9. 6A Mesquite 262 17:37.2 2:27.5 10. 6A Mesquite Poteet 278 17:40.2 2:03.8 11. 6A Cedar Ridge 298 17:45.7 2:19.7 12. 5A Forney 307 17:51.2 2:26.4 13. 5A Prosper 345 17:59.2 0:25.1 14. 5A Waxahachie 358 18:01.2 2:27.9 15. 6A Belton 374 18:06.1 2:09.5 16. 5A Red Oak 403 18:13.1 0:54.5 17. 5A Wylie East 455 18:32.1 3:12.0 18. 6A Richardson 468 18:31.8 0:25.7 19. 5A Frisco Independence 481 18:37.7 2:14.5 20. 6A Irving Nimitz 547 18:59.0 2:02.4 21. TAPPS Prince of Peace 548 19:04.5 3:51.4 22. 5A Frisco Centennial 579 19:04.0 1:13.2 23. 5A Lindale 624 19:29.5 2:30.5 24. 3A Van Alstyne 662 19:39.1 2:38.0 25. 3A Gunter 695 20:37.4 5:10.8 [team results] [overall results]

Lovejoy has always had the luxury of a deep team, and the JV races bear that out. The JV girls finished 2nd with an average time of 13:45.0 for a two-mile race. Their split time was a respectable 59.9 seconds, and the top 7 finished in order 8-11-15-20-25-34-35 — decent pack running numbers, especially for this early in the season. The girls were led by junior Lauren Helsley who finished 8th in 13:12.6. She was followed closely by Katherine Powell (11th in 13:25.7) and freshman Bella Gaccione (15th in 13:52.9). Our girls finished ahead of The Colony, Wylie East, and Prosper. The race winner was 6A Austin Westlake, and Lovejoy edge out 4A Kaufman for 2nd place when #6 runner Libby Britton finished ahead of Kaufman's #6 runner.

The JV Boys ran strong and in waves. As cool as the Varsity boys race turned out, the JV boys really punctuated the morning with a super start to their season. Ever since Lovejoy has enrolled enough students to fill out its XC JV squads, the school has not lost a JV girls or boys race at the District Championships. 6A Keller Central eked out the win by a 1-point margin while racing a squad of 29 runners. Lovejoy's leaner 15-boy squad had a better split time of 51.8 seconds and our top 7 scored in positions 1-3-11-14-15-17-29. Freshman Ryan Spruel led the JV boys finishing 1st overall in 17:22.5. Junior Hunter Joiner led much of the race and finished 3rd in 17:27.0. Then the pack of Dane Printz (11th in 18:06.3), Brock Bittner (14th in 18:12.1), and freshman Christian Sutter (15th in 18:14.3) closed out the scoring. Great job, fellas.

JV Girls place conf school score avg time split   1. 6A Austin Westlake 65 13:01.8 0:41.4 2. 5A Lovejoy 79 13:45.0 0:59.9 3. 4A Kaufman 79 13:41.5 1:40.3 4. 5A The Colony 108 14:04.5 0:36.8 5. 5A Red Oak 169 14:15.5 3:25.9 6. 5A Forney 170 14:31.6 0:59.5 7. 4A Sanger 190 14:40.2 1:29.8 8. 5A Wylie East 248 15:07.0 1:58.9 9. 5A Prosper 263 15:10.8 1:59.9 10. 5A Dallas Adamson 292 15:22.2 2:28.7 11. 6A Keller Central 295 15:25.8 1:44.1 12. 6A Irving Nimitz 333 15:41.0 0:40.2 13. 6A Mesquite 344 15:57.3 3:55.8 14. 5A Waxahachie 355 15:50.8 1:44.3 15. 2A Merit Bland 368 15:54.3 2:17.3 16. 6A Richardson 373 15:58.1 1:33.2 17. 5A Arlington Heights 485 16:58.3 1:27.4 18. 4A Uplift Hampton 540 18:31.1 3:11.8 [team results] [overall results]

JV Boys place conf school score avg time split   1. 6A Keller Central 43 17:49.9 0:59.5 2. 5A Lovejoy 44 17:52.4 0:51.8 3. 4A Kaufman 102 18:28.7 0:34.0 4. 6A Austin Westlake 140 18:49.5 0:30.4 5. 5A The Colony 170 18:58.2 1:32.1 6. 6A Mesquite Poteet 220 19:19.5 1:52.3 7. 5A Dallas Adamson 235 19:26.6 2:26.6 8. 6A North Crowley 253 19:36.9 1:12.0 9. 2A Merit Bland 284 19:45.4 2:44.3 10. 6A Mesquite 300 19:53.6 2:29.5 11. 6A Irving Nimitz 342 20:09.4 3:49.4 12. 5A Red Oak 354 20:18.7 1:33.3 13. 4A Uplift Hampton 358 20:19.3 2:00.5 14. 5A Prosper 377 20:24.7 3:46.4 15. 5A Arlington Heights 389 20:31.6 2:06.8 16. 5A Waxahachie 466 21:21.6 5:12.3 17. 5A Frisco Centennial 496 21:16.0 2:45.3 18. 6A Richardson 503 21:16.3 1:17.2 19. 4A Aubrey 510 21:50.5 4:07.2 20. 5A Frisco Independence 578 22:22.8 3:40.5 21. 5A Wylie East 590 22:02.1 1:43.0 22. 3A Hillsboro 621 22:27.9 1:30.0 [team results] [overall results]

Click here for the meet photo album. The JV Girls race only made one loop, so the photos from that race are more limited. And no running photos of LB (sorry) — the photography staff will make up for it at the Lovejoy XC Fall Festival.