Monday, September 24, 2012

Nebo Invite/Wahsatch Rendezvous

On Friday the 21st the Varsity teams raced at the Nebo Invite.  This year's version of the course was a flat, fast grass course at Salem Hills (measuring 3.25 miles).  The girls had one of their strongest team races of the year - taking 4th out of 25 teams and placing Rachel Stone (6th) and Jessica Peterson (8th) in the top 10.  The boys took 7th place and were paced by another great performance by Michael Finch who placed 2nd.  Mike is quickly becoming one of the Panther XC greats!
Saturday, the JV raced at the Wahsatch Rendezvous.  Both teams ran very well.  Megan Finch and Sarah Ballantyne were the top 2 finishers for the Panthers.  The boys took the team JV title by dominating the race - Kyler Prisbrey placed 4th, Matthew Young 5th, Paul Gaona 8th, Taylor Hobbs 9th, Nick Hill 10th, Josh Farish 12th, and Reed Burr 13th all came in under 18:00 for the 2.91 mile race.

Athlete of the Week - Nebo/Wahsatch

For this past weekend's journey up north, Sarah Ballantyne and Paul Gaona have earned Athlete of the Week.  Sarah is a Freshman who is in her first year of running with PVXC.  She had a great race at Wahsatch and placed as our 2nd JV runner in her first race!  Sarah has no fear of black cats or ladders, but is deeply afraid of the number 13.  Paul Gaona is also a Freshman.  Paul ran a little with our Youngster XC Club last year and showed a lot of potential.  He had a breakthrough race for himself at Wahsatch placing as the 3rd PV JV runner and helping the team with the JV title in dominating fasion.  Paul apparently likes snakes and everything strange.  He dislikes being normal and normal people.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Alumni Update 9/22

Many PVXC'ers are out there running in the college ranks this year.  So let's give a little update on them.
SUU:  Tyson and Kaylee Boyer are starting off the year great up in Cedar.  Both are fighting to be on the traveling squads for the T-Birds and are two of the top Freshman in the program.  Here are the results from their race last week down in Cali.  You can check out their time trials and get other update on them at the SUU XC page.
Utah State:  Ruth Hilton (former XC record holder and current 1600m school record holder- and State Champ!) is in her Redshirt Senior year as a standout Aggie harrier.  I have yet to see results rom her for this year, but we hope she is fully recovered from the injuries that have set her back the past couple years.
Dixie State:  A few PVXC grads are running for the Red Storm.  Along them are Josh Decker (team captain back in '08) and RJ Smith.  You can check out their results for the first race at NAU here.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Salt Lake Trip / Car Wash (coming soon!)

This week we are taking our overnighter to Nebo and Wahsatch.  The athletes took home an info paper and it was also sent around via email, so hopefully everyone who was invited (and their parents) know what is going on there.  Let's go race well!

Next Saturday we will host our 2nd Annual PVXC Car Wash at Sandstone Elementary from 10:00am-2:00pm.  Athletes - get selling your tickets.  Parents - encourage them to sell tickets.  Others - contact your local XC'er to purchase a ticket for $5 or just pay when you come.  This Car Wash is the fundraiser for the athletes to head down to California for the Foot Locker West Championships, so let's help support our awesome XC runners!

Michigan 9/18-19

This week we held our first Michigan workout of the season.  The team is really rounding into form and this workout was proof of it.  Congratulations to Mike Finch, Jessica Peterson, Rachel Stone, and Mia Hart for hitting the "A Standard" (Mia for the first time earning her Black/Silver laces!)
The following athletes all hit the "B Standard" (those with an * are hitting the mark for the first time and earned their laces): Casey Kimzey, Jason Lindhardt, Byron Warby, Colton Bowler, *Braden Johnston, *Taylor Abel, *Hunter Kimzey, *Josh Farish, *Nick Hill, *Kyler Prisbrey, *Danny Arellano, *Krenshaw Yazzie, Nicole Heinrich, Liz Lunt, Taylor Boyer, *Chancie Johnson, and *Kaelie Gillespie.
Great job everyone!

Athletes of the Week - Time Trial #2/Herriman

Am I catching up yet?  We had better announce the Athletes of the Week for last week before we race this week.  So...
For the boys we have Kyler Prisbrey (Junior) and Colton Bowler (Junior).
Kyler is in his first year running XC and shown amazing potential.  He has steadily improved through the summer and the school year to become one of the top JV runners on the team.  He likes people that dress as panthers, hunting large game, and neighborhood kick-the-can games.  He dislikes those who don't smile at Laffy-Taffy jokes.
Colton is starting to come back strong from injury early in the summer.  He has worked his way back to Varsity (a spot he held throughout last season) and is looking forward to an awesome end of the season.  Colton enjoys a good scavenger-hunt (but not as much as Byron!) and historical documentaries about various diseases.  He would rather stay away from deep-fried bananas and orange creamies.

And for the ladies: Erin Farish (Senior) and Kaelie Gillespie (Sophomore).
Erin is in her first year of XC as well.  She has really started to do well in her running and is making great improvements.  Erin enjoys getting beat at volleyball by Coach Holt, but she dislikes those who open doors for her.
Kaelie has worked very hard to work her way up to a Varsity spot this season.  At Herriman, she had a strong race on a very tough course and really closed the gap on the other Varsity runners.  Kaelie enjoys all things with her family (fights, yelling, all forms of various recklessness).  However, among her dislikes are hang-nails and badminton games gone array. 

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Race Reports: Murray/Herriman

I have been slow and haven't updated race reports for a little while, so I had better say something quick.
The Varsity boys and girls headed up north the past two Fridays for big invitationals.
The first (9/7) was the Murray Invite.  Both teams did well and finished in the top 10.  The girls were led by Rachel Stone who placed 37th to help guide the team to 10th place overall.  This was a strong finish by the girls and shows that they are on the right path.  Mike Finch led the boys to a 7th place team finish with his 6th place overall in a time of 15:54 on the 5K course. 
This past weekend we raced on the toughest 5K course in Utah - and I didn't believe it until I saw it, but it really is! - up at the Herriman Invite.  The girls improved on last week's performance and took 3rd place overall with Mia Hart (14th), Jessica Peterson (5th), and Rachel Stone (4th) all earning 1st and 2nd team awards.  The boys also took 3rd - defeating DH for the first time this year.  Placing in the top 14 for the boys were Byron Warby (12th) and Michael Finch (2nd).  Great job everyone!  This week... up to Nebo and Wahsatch!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Pine View Time Trial #2

We had a great time trial on Tuesday.  Nearly every runner hit a quicker time than the first time trial. The Youngsters and Girls were especially impressive.  Congrats to Sergio D. who set the records for the Middle schoolers by 31 secs. on the 1 mile XC course with a time of 5:28 - very impressive.  Addi B. also set the girls record and led a pack of middle school girls at 6:35-6:45 - awesome times!
Many of the HS girls ran time up to 2 minutes quicker than their previous times.  And Mike Finch just missed the HS boys record by just 1 sec. (even though the course is about 30 meters longer than previous years).

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Athlete of the Week - Dixie

With some strong performances all around, it was difficult to pick the Athletes of the Week from the Dixie All-Comers.  But the runs by Taylor Abel and Megan Finch have risen to the top.
Taylor paced the boys to a win at Dixie by finishing 5th overall in a time of 17:35 our 10th fastest time on this course.  Taylor, a Junior, is in his first year with XC and is making an immediate impact.  Taylor likes his marshmallows roasted to a golden brown and his waffles burnt to a crisp.  Among his many dislikes are purple wildflowers.
Megan, one of our few Freshman girls, is having a great first season of XC.  She was our 2nd finisher at this race and is really starting to run well.  She has many great years of cross in front of her and we look forward to her development and contributions to the team for years to come.  Megan likes everything her brother hates and hates everything he likes - kind of weird!

Dixie All-Comers

Some clouds rolled in and made Tuesday a great evening for racing at the Region South Course held at Bloomington Hills North Park.
The Youngsters started the team off well in the middle school race.  Sergio D. led the race throughout and ended up winning by 5 seconds with a killer kick in the last 150 meters.  Dallin G. also ran very well.  The ladies were led by Alli Peterson who placed 3rd overall in the girls and Josie Bushar who had her strongest race this season.
With the Varsity girls pulled from the race, Kaelie Gillespie paced our girls team over the 3 mile course.  She placed 23rd overall and ran a solid 23:30 on this very difficult course.
The boys were fighting for the remaining 3 spots on the Varsity trip to Murray this coming weekend.  Going into the race, there were 8 or so boys who had a good shot at the spots, and 4 of them ran together the whole race - making for a very exciting finish.  They all ran very well and finished 6-8 overall led by Taylor Abel, the Braden Johnston, Mathew Young and Colton Bowler.  Nick Hill finished 5th for the team (14th overall) and rounded out our team scoring.  We don't have the official results, but it will be very close between PV and Cedar for the win - pretty impressive without our top 4 runners.