Wolverines Beat the Heat at the Monroe Parker Invitational

Monroe Parker Recap

The Wolverines stood up well to the heat as they faced some of the top teams in the state at the Monroe Parker Invitational.  Many of the runners showed impressive progress from the previous meet, even as they moved up in distance to a 3 mile race. While the Wolverines didn’t walk away with any team or individual titles there were many standout performances to start the season off strong.

The West Potomac Freshmen boys were 5^th out of 25 teams, and were once again led by Michael Bell.  Bell closed strong to put himself in the top 15 in a time of 18:23 with a 14^th place finish.  Ben Slobodin had a nice race as he moved up throughout to place in the top 30 in a solid time of 19:07.  In the Freshmen girls race the Lady Wolverines were 13^th out of 15 teams and were led by Lauren Airey, who in her first cross country race was 26^th overall and able to break 22 minutes as she ran 21:58.

Junior Brian Spitnale carved two minutes off his Monroe Parker time 
from last year, leading the JV boys.

West Potomac competed in the 2^nd division of the JV races.  Junior Brian Spitnale continues to demonstrate his significant improvement as he ran over two minutes faster from his Monroe Parker time last year.  Spitnale was 28^th overall in a time of 18:40 and led the team to an 8^th place finish out of 15 teams.

Kristi Snow, Gabby Bomberg and Nikki Amico head into the final straightaway and finish 4th, 5th and 6th to lead the JV girls to the highest team finish of the day - second place. 

Even with the temperatures rising, the Lady Wolverines fought hard in the Girls JV Division #2.  It was West Potomac’s highest team finish as the Lady Wolverines narrowly lost to Chantilly (52 points) and were runner-up with 57 points.  The girls were led by a nice finish by the top three runners with sophomores Kristi Snow (4^th), Gabby Bomberg (5^th) and Nikki Amico (6^th) all running under 22 minutes.  Cross country newcomer Natalie Babiuch (20^th) ran a strong race to keep a low score along with Camille McMullen (22^nd) to keep all scoring runners in the top 25.

In the Varsity races the boys team was 10^th out of 28 teams.  Leading the way was junior Luca Halladay (37^th, 16:42) who was over 20 seconds faster than his performance a year ago and sophomore Nick Cucinotta (38^th, 16:44) who was over 3 minutes faster than his time in last year’s race.  Sophomore Eric Turner also dipped under 17 minutes on the course with his time of 16:56 and a 54^th place finish.

For the Girls Varsity the Lady Wolverines put together a 4^th place finish with 122 points, just two points shy of James Madison.  Junior Katie Genuario moved up throughout the race and closed hard to finish 10^th overall in a nice time of 18:40.  The next three scorers packed it in to have four West Potomac runners in the top 30 with Katie Murray (23^rd), Sophia Passacantando (24^th), and Lauren Price (27^th).  Sophomore Maura Finn rounded out the score in 44^th.

More photos from the meet can be seen on the West Potomac Sports website here. Many thanks to Sue and Paul Murphy for their photography - great shots Sue and Paul!

Up next for the West Potomac cross country teams will be a change of pace as they compete in the Braddock Relays on the evening of September 15.  This meet will feature several 5x2500m relay teams, a departure from traditional cross country format, but still fun and competitive. For more information see the separate blog entry on the Braddock Relays.