Most Recent Meet
National Championships - Nov 21st
Runners of the Meet - Eric Holaday and Hallie Schwab
For the third year in a row, both the men and women headed out to the National Championships - this year being in Ohio at the Highland Hills Golf Club. While most of the surrounding area was fairly flat, the course itself was deceptively hilly but nothing unlike what we would see regularly in NE. What made it a bit more difficult was the amount of rain that had fallen mid week made the course very soft and muddy and certainly made the course much tougher than it would normally be, and the hills became a bit longer as the race progressed due to the slipping back with each step. The start of the course was a split start, with 25 boxes of runners on each side of the finish alley, and they both converged about 250 meters out, before sharing the course for the remainder. Both teams got out well but seemed to struggle in the later stages. In hind sight (always 20-20) the approach to this course, on this particular day, maybe should have been one of a conservative nature rather than aggressively getting ourselves into good position from the start but there is little we can do other then reflect at this point, but as a coach, I feel that I should have advised a different strategy then what we had set for the race. The women were the first ones to race, and looked good as the two starts converged, and at the first mile, Sophie Galleher was right around All-American position while Hallie Schwab, Ali Simeone and Melissa Sullivan were all running near each other with Mercedes and Sarah Daly about 10 seconds behind and Keri Lambert another 10 seconds back. Shortly after the mile, the runners had a steep downhill and then a long flat section that went out and back around a creek before coming back to the 2 mile mark, and the team started to slip back a little back from their position and looked as though the legs were taking a beating, especially as they had another steep climb right after the 2 mile. Sophie had fall back to Hallie and Ali, while Sully (battling a sinus infection) was doing her best to try and keep the pack close but having difficulty doing that, while Mercedes and Sarah were running near each other. Hallie really pushed the middle portion of the race, and caught up with Sophie and then Ali was able to get back to her and the trio would run together for a bit before Ali would open a little gap in the last 1200 to finish 78th overall, as Amherst's first runner, with Hallie coming 15 seconds after her, and Sophie right on her heels a second later. Sully would finish a little more then 30 seconds back, and then another 30 seconds behind her came Mercedes to close out the scoring, with Sarah finish 6th for the team and Keri closing out the day. The team's finish of 21st place fell short of the desired Top10 but in the "rebuilding year", it marked the finish of a great season and definitely one in which they will build on next year.
The men got out very well, with Daniel Murner establishing good position in the Top 15 of the race, while Will Yochum was probably around 40th, and then Steve Corsello, Jimmy Swanson and Eric Holaday all were in good position - probably around 100-120 or so, with John McGrail not far behind, and Kit Callahan behind him. As they approached the 2 mile mark, Murner had fallen back to around 50th while Will had moved up into the Top 15, and had they been able to see each other during that transition and been able to work together it could have been helpful to both, but unfortunately they missed the opportunity. The 3-5 guys were continuing to run well together, as they had found each other and were working well as Holaday. Corsello and Swanson all were within grabbing distance of each other. As they came up the long up hill to the 3mile mark, and started to enter the outer loop of the course, Will was still in All-American position while Murner was struggling to maintain his position in the Top 50. Eric Holaday was starting to move up through the field, and was bringing Steve with him while Jimmy and McGrail had not paired up. As the runners came to the last of the steep hills, at about 1000 to go Murner had moved within striking distance of All-American with Yochum slipping back to about 60th, and then a pretty good sized gap heading back to the next pair of runners in Holaday and Steve (about 30 seconds back) with another 20 seconds or so to Jimmy and McGrail. At the end, Murner had moved up to 44th - 9 spots and 10 seconds from All-American status - while Will finished in 69th. Eric, in just his 2nd race since mono had his best race of the season to finish in 27:03 while Steve came through the line 5 seconds later, and the pair of Swanson and McGrail were separated by just 3 places as they finished in 27:26 and 27:29, while the big man, Kit Callahan (the only runner on the team who competed in every race this year) came home in 28:42. The team would finish 17th overall, and despite some setbacks this year, it was a solid finish for the season and one in which we will try to improve upon next fall.