Boys cross country takes sixth at Boardman in Division I race
Avon’s boys cross country team competed at the Boardman Invitational Saturday, placing sixth in the Division I race.
The nine-team race was won by North Allegheny (Pa.) with 47 points, followed by Perrysburg (63), Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy (85), Solon (86), Stow (94) and Avon (135).
Boardman is the site of the regional meet in late October, and Avon coach Matt Nortz wanted his runners to get some experience on the course as well as face some of the competition they will see at regionals.
“I think the guys ran a good race,” Nortz said. “It was really strong competition. We were trying to beat Solon, Perrysburg and Stow, and they stepped up pretty good this week.”
After placing 13th in the state last year in Division II, the Eagles were bumped up to Division I this season. Because there are so few Division I programs in Northeast Ohio, only the top five teams at the regional meet will qualify to the state meet, something the team is very aware of.
“I’m not going to say we’re in trouble, but we need to continue to step up,” Nortz said. “We’ve seen this before. We did it last year. But we have to all improve. We have a really good pack, and that pack needs to move up 10 or 15 seconds. If they all do that, then we have a shot to make it to the state meet. But only five make it. Right now, there are seven teams in our regional that we haven’t beaten.”
The Eagles were led by Nick Thompson, who placed 11th over the 5,000-meter course with a time of 17 minutes, 5.15 seconds. The senior was held out of last week’s race at Wooster because of ongoing health issues.
“I was very happy with how Nick stepped up,” Nortz said. “That’s very promising for him to lead us this week.”
Thompson was followed by Jared Keressi (26th in 17:30.23), Luke Fox (31st in 17:40.41), Blaise Wieber (32nd in 17:40.73), Liam Nobles (35th in 17:59.09), Caden Matthews (37th in 18:07.37) and Anthony Danicki (39th in 18:25.14).
“We’re still learning to race,” Nortz said. “We’re just focusing on improving every week. I think we have some good races ahead of us, but we have some improving to do to meet our goal, which is to make it to the state meet.”
Next week the Eagles will compete in the Todd Clark Invitational hosted by Cloverleaf but held at Silver Creek Metro Park in Norton.
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