CC teams advance to regionals

By Laura Clark

Published: October 29, 2008

The Lancer boys cross country team didn’t have any breakout performances, but together than ran a solid race, taking fourth place in the Seminole meet behind Jefferson Forest, Heritage and Brookville on Oct. 22.

“I’m really proud of our guys. We had three guys in the top 15, and it’s been a long time since we had that,” coach Bill Chavis said. “We ran what we normally do. We had some guys down in the low 18s.”

The all-district runners for Amherst were Jonathon Fitzgerald, Jacob Pritchett and Carson Reynolds. Fitzgerald, who placed ninth, ran an 18:12.60. He was three seconds off his personal best.

Part of his race plan was to stay as close as possible to the Jefferson Forest pack, but he also paced with his teammates.

“The hill that gave me the most trouble was right after the 1-mile mark,” Fitzgerald, a junior, said. “I just paced off my teammate, which was Jacob. Right after I got up the hill, that’s when I passed him.”

Pritchett beat Reynolds for 12th place by fractions of a second. He was also about two paces behind Fitzgerald, finishing in 18:28.41.

“But it wasn’t what I was hoping for,” the senior said, adding that he’d wanted to break 18:00 and lead the Lancers. “So next week is when I’ve got to do better. We’ve kind of got a little pack going on, which is more than I could ask for.”

Reynolds, third for the Lancers, was pretty happy with his race. He stayed in about the 13th position for the whole five kilometers around Wolf Branch Farm.

“I think I went out too fast at the beginning. By the end I picked it up and got where I needed to be,” Reynolds said.

His teammate and fellow senior, Josh Wise, was just in front of him at the 1-mile mark, but Wise fell back and finished 26th overall and fourth for the Lancers in a time of 19:22.85. He was about 20 seconds off his best time.

“I started off really well, but coming up those couple of hills it just gets tougher,” Wise said. “You tighten up in the legs. For me, my shins (tightened). I had to hold back a little bit for the third mile.”

Senior Steven Cooke was the fifth Lancer runner, placing 35th overall. He said this race went much better than the meet on Oct. 15 at the same course, where he had cramps throughout the race.

Amherst’s sixth runner was freshman Joel Wendland, who placed 36th.

Junior Benjamin Payne came in seventh for Amherst and 44th overall.

The team will travel to Fort Defiance Oct. 30 for the Region III meet.

“I think the course we’ll be running on will be faster,” Chavis said. “This is a tough course. I think the change of the course is deceiving.

“It’s a lot harder than people think.”