Cross country teams continue their pack mentality at Wooster Invitational

WOOSTER, Ohio—In an odd twist that defies logic, Avon’s girls cross country team had two different chances to come away with a first-place trophy at the Wooster Invitational but instead came away with none.

Only the first three races were held Saturday before a strong storm came through and washed out the remainder of the meet. But there were plenty of coaches seen scratching their heads in confusion before the skies let loose.

The meet has become very popular because the two-loop course is very fast, with long downhill stretches and very little uphill running. In fact, in the first race of the day, Navarre Fairless junior Brice Fuller ran a magnificent time of 14 minutes, 54.1 seconds over the 5,000-meter course, the fastest time run thus far in the state.

Meet management decided to schedule four varsity races—combining divisions I and II into one boys and one girls race and then combining divisions III and IV the same way. So far, that’s nothing unusual, although the races for the smaller divisions were washed out.

But when the results came out, the races were scored as separate divisions. There was a separate score for the Division I teams and a separate score for the Division II teams, which is an unusual way to handle a race in which the divisions run together.

Now, here’s where it becomes really interesting. According to the official results, Avon’s girls placed second to Massillon Jackson by just two points, 40-42, in the Division I race. But here’s the problem—the Eagles have dropped to Division II this year.

So, getting back to Avon’s two chances to win. First of all, had the race been scored as all one race, the Eagles would have won with a score of 116 to 125 for Jackson. Or, had they been included in the Division II scoring, Avon would have won easily with 89 points to 177 for Bay. Instead, Bay was declared the winner by a point over Hudson, 150-151.

Avon was led by Ava Melott, the only senior among the top seven runners. She set an all-time personal record of 18:54.87, the first time she has ever broken 19 minutes. Last year the Eagles placed third in the state in Division I, and four runners graduated from that squad. But rather than having to work through a rebuilding year, the young squad appears to be as strong as ever.

“We’ve been packing it up like every year, no matter who’s on the team,” Melott said. “We’ve been working hard, training hard, and we really trust our training. Our team chemistry is always so great, and we’re always focused on packing it up. That’s just what we do.”

Packing it up is a term that clearly is prevalent in a lot of what coach Justin Carroll is pushing. Behind Melott, Avon had a tight pack of Brooke Tindera (19:20.99), Molly Suter (19:32.93), Madison Colaizzi (19:33.97), Molly Pomfrey (19:44.77), Lauren Kershaw (19:51.53) and Momoka Tanaka (20:05.13).

“The biggest focus, especially with having graduated four seniors last year, is just packing it up,” Carroll said. “We don’t have a frontrunner like we did with Kaitlyn Reese (now at Michigan State). Ava has been running strong, but the focus, regardless of anything else, is closing the gap on one another, packing it up, no matter what the race is. And I think today they executed it very well.”

Avon’s boys also ran at Wooster, led by senior Caden Matthews with a time of 16:58.90. He was followed by Jared Keressi in 17:11.08, Matthew Lochbihler in 17:12.02, Blaise Wieber in 17:12.96, Luke Fox in 17:29.12, Levi Harbeck in 17:43.42, and Liam Nobles in 17:45.54.

Coach Matt Nortz said he was pleased with how the team ran as a pack, but his concern was that the Eagles didn’t get out hard in the early stages of the race, and with 350 runners in the field, it was difficult to move up.

“I think they ran well, but I think they could have gotten out a little faster,” Nortz said. “We’re learning and we’re training through races like this. So, it was a good learning experience, and I know we have better weeks ahead of us.”

Next on the schedule for the Avon boys is a trip Saturday to Boardman for the Spartan Invitational, while the girls will be competing in the Celtic Clash at Dublin Jerome High School.