Awards Banquet

Our annual awards banquet was held in a packed PVHS Commons last night.
As a team we want to give another big thanks to Heidi Frodsham and everyone else who helped her organize and carry-out the dinner.  As well as to Chris Heinrich for the awards - they looked great as always.
All of our athletes who finished the season with the team earned their Letters - Participation, JV, or Varsity.
We also recognized our new captains for the 2013 season - Liz Lunt, Mia Hart, Maquel Millward, Byron Warby, Taylor Abel, and Paul Gaona.
And we handed out our individual awards:
All-State: Michael Finch, Rachel Stone, Byron Warby
Performance of the Year: Michael Finch - 3rd at State/new school record; Rachel Stone - 2nd at Region
Most Improved: Krenshaw Yazzie; Aubrey McBride
Outstanding Newcomer: Paul Gaona; Erin Farish
Most Inspirational: Ryan Archibald; Taelor Bithell
Most Outstanding Athlete: Michael Finch; Rachel Stone

Congrats to all our amazing athletes.  This has been such a great year.  As coaches we have loved it and even though we will greatly miss all of our Seniors - you have meant so much to this program, you are the best - we are super excited for next year to get going!

 

XC 4 EVER!

Nike X Regionals - Southwest

The Varsity guys and girls had a great trip to Phoenix for the Nike X Southwest Regionals.  Despite some hotel and breakfast issues, the trip was great and we had an awesome experience.
Arriving at the course on Friday, we did our run-through and some striders and then participated in the pre-race activities.  The t-shirt exchange was a lot of fun and some "interesting" shirts were traded for.  Taylor Boyer ended up winning our team vote for best shirt and got an PVXC zip-up jacket for her efforts.  Much props also goes out to Abel for getting a beanie for Coach Holt (we won't mention those that let Coach Roberts down).  Then Paul got to meet 4-time Olympian Abdi Abdirahman - and almost got his hat.

Saturday morning, the girls got us started in the Open I race.  Each of the girls ran very well and helped the team place 23 out of 48.  Leading the pack was Rachel Stone who placed 21st overall in a time of 19:00 to set a new PV record on the Toka Sticks course.
Next four of the boys ran in the Open I race.  And again ran very well.  For much of the race, Colton, Abel, Paul and Matt were in a very tight pack.  Eventually they finished with a spread of about 20 seconds with Abel in the lead and placing 62nd overall in 16:28.

Our last race of the day was the Championship Boys race with Michael, Byron and Casey.  Again each guy ran well.  Casey ran a strong 16:44, Byron raced extremely well and turned in a top 5 PV time all-time with a 16:06 and 104th place finish.  And Mikey!...  Mike put himself in the lead pack from the very beginning and as the leaders started to string the race out he went with them and was in 3rd place until about 600 meters to go.  Michael eventually finished an amazing, yet heartbreaking 10th - just off of a national qualifying place.  His 10th place finish was the highest ranking ever for a Panther runner and a new school record by nearly 30 seconds!  Now we set our sights on the final race of the season down at FootLocker in two weeks.

Post Season Update

PVXC has participated in a couple events since the end of the regular season.  Check out results for the PreFootlocker Invite at American Fork from early in November and our 3rd PV Time Trial on our results link to the right of the page.  Both races had some very solid performances for PVXC'ers.  This week, the Varsities will be heading down to Phoenix for Nike Cross Southwest and will be participating in the Open Races (hopefully Mike will be in the Championship Boys race, but we have yet to hear).  Then in just 2 weeks after that, we will be traveling to Mt. SAC for the Footlocker West Championships.  So good luck to all those competing in the next few weeks and let's have a great end to the XC season!