Girls Win and Boys Place Sixth at PR Kickoff Invitational!

The 2012 season started off strong at Bull Run Regional Park with the Wolverines competing in the =PR= Kickoff Invitational for the fourth consecutive year.  The race was divided into three sections for each gender: Freshmen, Sophomore and Junior/Senior, allowing runners to compete against their classmates on the two mile course.

Jennifer Thomson was the top freshman girl, leading the squad to a sixth place finish. 

Michael Bell placed sixth, leading the Freshman boys to an 8th place team finish. 

            In the Freshmen Girls race Jennifer Thomson was the team’s top finisher and led the girls to a 6^th place finish.  On the boys side, freshmen Michael Bell ran an impressive first cross country race with his 6^th place finish out of over 100 runners.  Bell and his classmates tied for 8^th place in the Freshman Boys team standings.

Nick Cucinotta (right) led the way for the Sophomore boys with a 5th place finish, swiftly followed by Cullen O'Boyle. 

Maura Finn was the top Wolverine finisher in the Sophomore girls race. The squad finished second in the team standings. 

            Demonstrating remarkable improvement, both of the sophomore races saw the Wolverines notch a host of top 15 finishes.  The Lady Wolverines put 5 runners in the top 15 of the Sophomore Girls race with Maura Finn (6^th), Melanie Bomberg (8^th), Nikki Amico (12^th), Gabby Bomberg (13^th) and Kristi Snow (15^th).  With a low score of 48 the girls managed to place runner-up to Thomas Jefferson in the team standings. 

Following the example set by their female classmates, the Sophomore Boys made a strong showing from West Potomac.  The boys were led by Nick Cucinotta (5^th), who was over 3 minutes faster than his time from last year.  The Wolverines packed it in with Cullen O’Boyle (6^th), Eric Turner (9^th), James McNulla (12^th) and newcomer Shreyak Khanal (26^th) to place first in the team standings.  The improvements from both sophomore classes are a demonstration of the hardworking group who are much improved in their second season of cross-country.

Katie Genaurio was the top Wolverine finisher of the meet, placing second in the Junior/Senior girls race and leading the team to victory for the second consecutive year. 

For the second straight year the Lady Wolverines won the Junior/Senior division.  Junior Katie Genuario was runner-up in a field of 121 runners and was nearly a minute faster than her 2011 finish.  Senior captain Sophia Passacantando kicked in strong to finish 6^th overall and right behind Katie Murray (7^th) showed that she is a much improved runner and poised to add depth to the Varsity lineup.  Senior captain Lauren Price (18^th) and Allison McNulla (19^th) ran well to put all scoring Lady Wolverines in the top 20 for a score of 47, far ahead of runner-up Westfield (79).

In the final race of the day, the Junior/Senior Boys had two top 20 finishes with Corey Rosenberg (16^th) and Luca Halladay (19^th) both putting forth improvements from the 2011 finishes.  Senior Crispin Bernier was 22^nd and junior Brian Spitnale (58^th) showed he is a much stronger runner this year as he was nearly 2 minutes faster than last year.  David Cate (80^th) rounded out the score for the boys team as they finished 7^th.

In the combined team scores the Lady Wolverines (66) were the top team as they outdistanced Thomas Jefferson (70) by 4 points.  On the boys side West Potomac was 6^th out of the 10 teams. These are different team results than those announced at the meet last week - this is because the results announced at the meet added up all the scores from each of the races to tally a result. However, if you scored this meet with traditional cross country meet scoring, the West Po girls won, and the boys finished sixth. Milestat does a good job covering the meet here.
 The Wolverines return to action at this week’s Monroe Parker Invitational, September 8^th at Burke Lake Park.  Both teams are looking forward to the meet after starting off well this week.  Burke Lake Park is the site of the District and Regional Championships and will feature heightened competition at a longer distance of 2.98 miles.

Photos from the meet can be found here. Thanks to Sue Murphy for her photography prowess!

For those interested in tracking improvement from the 2011 =PR= Kickoff Results,  please see the document under Team Links.  A big thank you to Coach Coffey for taking the time to put these stats together!!!