JV Highlights

The JV race at Kensington is not scored, which means that finish places aren’t recorded and there are no team scores. Nevertheless, our Pioneer JV gave a strong showing at Kensington – beginning with junior Joe Frakes who missed winning the JV race by only a fraction of a second, in a time of 17:56.9, knocking 22.8 seconds from his PR and crossing that 18-minute mark for the first time in his running career.  Joe looked like a "natural" out on the Kensington course, which really wasn’t a surprise to those who had watched as Joe improved during the 2007 season.  Congratulations on a great race, Joe.

Junior Caleb Fogel, plagued by injuries during his freshman and sophomore years, sure looked strong and healthy at Kensington as he finished near the front with a time of just 18:22.4 – a new PR by 30.1 seconds.  Congrats, Caleb, on a fine race that we hope is just the start of a journey towards realizing your full potential as a healthy Pioneer.
 
Junior Lucas Arias trimmed 9.9 seconds from his PR with his 19:02.6 finish time, leading returning Pioneer juniors Jonathan Diep (19:18.1) and Kevin Chaperon (19:36.5).  Sophomore Alex Massingill is new to Pioneer cross country this season, but turned in a fine performance with his 19:48 finish. Look for all of these Pioneers to be serious competitors this year!
 
Returning Pioneer John Fonte demonstrated his drive to improve as he trimmed 21 seconds from his PR with a 20:15 finish, while juniors Ethan Warren (20:47.6) and Ryan Goodwin (20:48.8), track team members new to cross country, raced the course together.  Returning junior Zack Keller (20:51.5) chopped 1:34 seconds from last year’s PR and more than 7 minutes from his efforts on this course last year - way to go Zach!  Freshman Kevin Knight showed us that the Class of 2012 has some good potential, too, as he crossed the finish line in 20:59.8 for his first high school meet.
 
Sophomore Nick Gottschlich, in his first cross country race, clocked-in at 21:02.9, and returning junior Ben Aukerman finished right behind in 21:09.9, cutting 25 seconds from last year’s Kensington time – congrats, Ben!  Junior Jack McWhinnie, another track runner joining cross country this fall, finished his first race in 22:02.8.  Returning sophomores Eric Seitz (22:51.2) and Noah Kaczor (22.53) also ran together to their advantage, as Eric was able to subtract 1:03.8 from his PR – and over 5 minutes from last year’s Kensington time.  Congratulations Eric! Freshman Bill Carras (23:57.8) and exchange student Dmitry Tretyakov (24:16.4) also turned in very respectable times – faster than many first-time Pioneers of previous seasons - as they gained experience on this tough course – experience that they’re sure to put to good use in upcoming meets.
 
Although the JV squad is smaller this year (there are fewer Pioneer freshman this year due to AA Skyline HS opening), the Kensington results show how much potential this JV squad has and how well all that hard work is paying off:  This year’s JV times show a lot of improvement since last year. Congratulations Pioneer JV, and keep on running!