1A Girls Race Summary

Pre-race favorite Julie Wollrath of Holy Trinity pretty much performed as scripted. Coming through the mile mark in a slightly conservative 5:43, she let Danielle Van Liere (Providence) and Bryce Seymour (Circle Christian) do most of the work up front.

 

After drafting for about 3K, she finally took over the lead from Seymour just prior to entering the infield. At that point the young yet expereinced racer put down the hammer and swiftly dropped her competitors.

 

She powered through the line to a 13 second victory with a time of 18:18. Though after the race Wollrath insisted the two false starts in the race did not impact her performance, you've got to think that they did take the edge off of the kick and imagine the time would have quite a bit faster on fresh feet.

 

If patience is a virtue then Ms. Kurgatt should apply for sainthood.

 

Watching the video, it's hard to even find her. Only when the camera pans back, well back, do we find her hanging just barely maintaining contact in the chase pack. Through the mile she was five seconds behind the lead pack. Through two miles, eleven seconds behind and seemingly racing for second team.

 

Even leaving the infield for the final kilometer, St. Stefanie was a whoping sixteen seconds behind leader Julie Wollrath and eventual third place finisher Katelyn Greenleaf.  She sat in a distant sixth place.

 

And then slowly she turned it on, picking it up as others started to fade. Coming up the final climb, she turned to the killer kick that she's known for on the track and passing all but Wollrath. That patience and closing gear led her to a second place time of 18:31, again after most others were fading out due to the false starts.

 

That is an incredible race and knowing how to position yourself and run your own race. She knew her strength was in her closing and knew her competition. And it paid off.

 

Couldn't have happened to a nicer girl!

 

I'm not sure what happened down there at the starting line, well out of our clear view from the grandstands, but the 1A girls suffered from a lot of burnt energy. Nerves typically build up before the start of the race and explode with the firing of the gun. So poor girls having to do that not once, not twice, but three times.

 

By the end of the third act of the 3.2 or so miles they had to race, it had clearly taken its toll on some of the race's top athletes. Most of the leaders started to fall back over that last bit of distance, almost like there was gas enough only for exactly 5K and the premature starts had consumed the needed last bit of umpth of the green monster. Especially Brittney Olinger seemed impacted. She held up in the top four for almost the entire race before struggling just to get over the line. What might she have done with out that? We'll never know.

 

Besides that though... 

 

Because of those two false starts, the starting time of the next race was not adjusted. The schedule dictates 20 minutes in between each race. There were twenty minutes in between the FIRST start of the 1A Girls race and the start of the 2A Girls race. However, no adjustment was made for the two that were called back.

 

As a consequence, champion Julie Wollrath did not have her moment to shine. As she approached the final straightaway toward on her triumphant march up Mount Everglades, the gun for the next race was fired.

 

A hord of girls ran paraell and basically burried the freshman from the view of the crowd. She (amazingly) was actually passing girls with her finish kick who were freshly starting their race. But she was somewhat robbed of that celebratory moment of the crowd cheering her home.

 

I hope there will be some adjustments next year to prevent this from happening in the future. And luckily Wollrath has three more years of potential glorious moments!

 

 

It's always great to see the well-known teams continue their impressive traditions. But it's also very rewarding to see new faces with gold medals around their necks.

 

Providence, led by Danielle Van Liere, shone brightly in their teal uniforms and beat out perenial powers Oak Hall and Holy Trinity. They were a mere three points better than the Eagles. There was definitely a lot of nail-biting anticipation until the final results were printed!

 

Congrats, Providence!