Eagles rest varsity at Medina, gear up for postseason meets

It’s been a season in which every varsity runner for the Avon boys cross country team has dealt with at least one injury, but the Eagles remain determined to have a strong postseason. The district meet will be held October 18, and on October 11 Avon will have the opportunity to defend its Southwestern Conference title. “It’s been a little bit of a process, but we feel we’re going to be ready for the postseason,” said coach Matt Nortz. Saturday the Eagles competed in the Milt Place Distance Festival in Medina, resting most of the varsity runners and letting the JV runners compete in the Division I/II varsity race. Avon placed 20th in a field of 28 teams with 568 points. The winning team was Woodridge with 47. The Eagles were led by Matthew Lochbihler, who finished 76th with a time of 18 minutes, 3.95 seconds over the 5,000-meter course. He was followed by Blaise Wieber (87th in 18:20.00), Levi Harbeck (111th in 18:33.32), Caden Matthews (128th in 18:51.57), Rocco Young (147th in 19:22.21), Alessandro Anamasi (161st in 19:39.29), Brandon Kasten (174th in 19:45.62) and Jack Copeland (180th in 19:53.39). “I thought they raced well,” said Nortz. “We didn’t race all of our varsity today. Matt had been injured, and now he’s back, so he’s just getting a feel for it. And we also had Blaise in there in the mix. We had some young kids who stepped up. I thought Rocco ran really well. Levi really pushed the pack. He’s a young kid, but he’s really aggressive. That was nice to see.”