2015 Varsity Girls Cross Country
Coach Peter Livingstone-McNelis
BCS All Conference 1st Team - Callie James
BCS All Conference 2nd Team - Tajah Thomas
BCS Honorable Mention - Sara Schroeder
11-7 - MHSAA State Finals
All three athletes performed well at the State Meet with Callie breaking her
lifetime personal best by 23 seconds and finishing 133rd/250 with a time of
21:09 while Tajah Thomas and Travon each ran their 2nd fastest times of the
year, running respectively 21:21 (149th) and 17:38 (114th). It was also great to
see so many runners from the team cheering their teammates on including: Kendall
Green, Garrett Green, Sara Schroeder-Crispillo, Austine Salome, Katie Rooney,
Mubark Hasan, and Vincent McNelis. Way to Go Team!!!
10-31 - MHSAA Regional Meet
I am happy to say that I would like to give the Golden Shoe Awards again to
the girl's and boy's teams which both finished higher than their rankings going
into the Regional Meet. On the girl's side, the team was ranked 10th out of 12
teams but finished 8th only 4 points away from finishing 7th. While the boy's
team which was ranked 6th finished 5th and was only 17 points away from
finishing 3rd and qualifying for the State Championship as a team. The girl's
team a week before the Regional Championship was projected to score 216 points
but instead score 179 points, or in other words, 37 points better than
predicted! Additionally, the boy's team was projected to score 168 points but
instead scored 111 points--a 57 point improvement! Way to go Colts!!!
The above achievements which accomplished by a great overall team effort,
however, a couple of runners deserve extra recognition for having exceptional
races. On the girl's side, I would like to acknowledge both Tajah Thomas and
Callie James who made the All-RegionTeam by finishing 8th and 11th out of field
of 89 runners, respectively in the Regional Meet and living up to their seeded
going into the meet. In addition, I would like to acknowledge another gutsy
performance by Sara Schroeder Crespillo who wasn't afraid to go out fast running
10 places ahead of where she was seeded for the first two miles and then after
she started fading she still managed to hold onto 45th place in the race.
10-24 - Kalamazoo Christian Invitational
I would like to congratulate both the girl's and boy's team for having
fantastic performances at the Kalamazoo Christian Comet Invitational. First of
all the girl's team which I had set the team goal of beating Bangor the 6th
Ranked Team in Region 22 did so even though Comstock Girl's Team was Ranked 10th
going into the meet while the Boy's Team though Ranked 6th in the region lost by
only 6 pts. to Watervliet the 3rd Ranked Team in the Region which I had also
challenged them to beat. It is for these reasons that I would like to honor both
the girl's and boy's teams with the Golden Shoe Awards.
On the girl's side, the above performance can largely be credited to the
Top 3 girls on the team all achieving major P.R.'s. leading the way was Tajah
Thomas who took 3rd out of field of 119 with a time of 20:46 (23 second P.R.),
then Callie James 16th in 21:32 (32 second P.R.) followed by Sarah
Schroeder-Crispillo in 23:08 good for 36th place and representing a 48 second
P.R. Both Tajah and Callie earned medals by finishing in the Top 25. Rounding
out the scoring for the girl's were Kendal Green 77th (25:43), and Patricia
Sivley 79th (25:54). The girl's team wound up taken 4th place behind Grand
Rapids South Christian, the 12th ranked Division II Team, Watervliet the No. 1
ranked team in our Region, and a very strong Grand Rapids Covenant Team. Go
Colts!!!
10-20 - Comstock Tri
10-13 - BCS Berrien Springs Jamboree
BCS Jamboree at Berrien Springs Girls Results
BCS Jamboree Finish Order
10-10 - Allegan Invitational
Given this I would like to award the Golden Shoe Awards to the following
girl's on the team: First, Tajah Thomas for placing 19th (21:09 ) thereby
earning a medal in the combined large school/small school race featuring the Top
3 runners from the 15 schools that competed in the race. In other words, she
would have been the Top runner on many of the larger school teams. In the
process, she also once again broke her P.R. this time by 11 seconds. In
addition, Sara Schroeder-Crispillo turned in another fine performances (24:04)
by bettering her P.R. as well by 38 seconds. Also, special recognition should go
to both Patricia Sivley (25:48) and Nareai McPherson (26:04 which is only 3
seconds off her P.R.) who though not breaking their P.R.'s ran almost as fast as
they did in their last race (Otsego) where they both smashed their previous
P.R.'s. Katie Rooney also hung in tough running virtually solely for most the
race yet running a solid time and preserving one of the team's goals at the
outset of the season of having at least five girl's cross the finish line in
each and every race which the team has now done in all 9 meets this year, a feat
that previous Comstock girl's teams hadn't done once in five years. Go
Colts!!!
10-3 - Otsego Invitational
Yesterday the boy's and girl's teams had a meet at the Otsego Invitational
in the boy's varsity race the team took 5th place out of 14 teams while the
girl's varsity team without their No. 3 & No. 4 runners (Sara
Schroeder-Crispillo & Kendall Green) took 10 out of 12 teams.
In the boy's varsity race, Travon (17:36) and Austin (18:04) both earn
medals finishing 10th and 22nd out of field of 101 runners while Tajah Thomas
(21:20) and Callie James (22:04) both earned medals finishing 11th and 22nd out
of field of 98 runners. Also, Tanner Phares (21:30) earned a medal finishing 9th
in the J.V. race.
In terms of the Golden Shoe awards, I would like to give it to both the
Girl's Varsity Team and the Boy's J.V. Team. On the girl's team, Tajah, Callie,
Patricia, Nareai, and Katie (28:03) all set P.R.'s in the race, and Katie did so
despite having to overcome some pain in her knee that had been bothering her all
week, while in the Boy's J.V.'s race, four out of the five runners broke their
P.R.s.
Given the above it is hard to decide who on the team is deserving of
receiving individual Golden Shoe award recognition but I would like to shine the
spotlight on Dino Sively, Rodrigo Jaurez, Vincent McNelis, Patricia Sively, and
Nareai McPherson performances.
On the girl's side, Patricia and Nareai both ran spectacular races lowering
their P.R.'s substantially whereby Patricia dropped 1:45 seconds off her P.R.
running in 25:03 while Nareai dropped her P.R. by 1:31 finishing in 26:01. This
means now that the girl's team No. 3 thru No. 5 runners P.R.'s are separated now
by only 15 seconds and the team now is just shy of having five runners under 25
minutes, a key benchmark for moving from a competitive team to a good team (a
standard I set at the beginning of the year for our team to achieve). Moreover,
Nareai by running 26:01 further places herself in a key position of being able
to displace the 5th runner on a lot of the teams that this team will be aiming
to beat at the league and regional meets.
9-29 - BCS Comstock Jamboree
Once again, I am proud to be able to say that Golden Shoe Awards go to both
the Boy's and Girl's Teams that finished 3rd in the 2nd Jamboree after both
teams had finished 4th at the previous Jamboree. This was the team goal going
into the meet and both teams accomplished this feat. The bar was set relatively
high considering the boy's team scored 29 pts. more than the 3rd place team did
in the 1st Jamboree and the girl's team scored 28 pts. more. Nonetheless, the
boy's team bested the fourth place team by 2 pts. and the girl's team did so by
8 pts. in this meet.
On the girl's side, Comstock will take 3rd in the final team standings if
the team once again is able to beat Buchanan. If not, the girl' team will finish
4th--we are not going there!
Individually given the above team performances several girl's and boy's on
the team are worthy receipts of the M.J. (a.k.a. Michael Johnson) Golden Shoe
Awards:
First of all it should be noted that Tajah Thomas and Callie James turned
in phenomenal performances with Tajah finishing 3rd and Callie finishing 6th in
the field of 47 runners. Moreover, this means that both Tajah and Callie have
now placed themselves in a solid position to receive All-Conference Honors. In
the process, Tajah obtained yet another P.R. by 33 sec. while Callie was just
off her P.R. despite our home course being by the far the toughest course that
we have run on. Other great performances on the the girl's team were turned in
by Sara Schroeder-Crespillo who put herself into position along with Kendall
Green (23rd) to possible earn All-Conference Honorable Mention recognition (Top
13-18 highest average finish over the 3 league meets) by placing 17th in the
race and bettering her P.R. by 53 seconds. Special recognition should also be
given to Nareai McPherson who had a 35 second P.R. and was able to as Comstock's
6th runner beat Buchanan's 5th runner.
9-23 - Lawrence Invitational
Yesterday's meet produced another exceptional run by the team with almost
the entire team setting season and/or lifetime P.R.'s. Even more impressively
this was done after the team ran on this same course under similar conditions
only a month ago and we as team were very pleased with our performance as a
whole back then i.e., boy's team took 1st by one point over Lawrence and girl's
team took 2nd after not finishing as a team in five years. Remember also the
girl's team toeing the line in this race with only six runners as opposed to
eight runners now and the team chanting No Walk/No Drop because this was a real
worry with both Katie and Samantha needing to walk in practices prior to this
race to complete the workouts. Four weeks later this is not a worry at all with
Katie running 6th for the team some 2:08 faster than she did in this first race,
and Samantha after having dropped out of this race, now as the 8th finisher for
the team (only 30 seconds back of Katie ) being able to place ahead of the 7th
runner for three out of the four schools that the team faced.
I was also excited to see how much both the boy's and girl's team cheered
for each other at this meet and how well individuals on the team pushed each
other in the race to run their best--prime examples of this were TnT (Tajah) and
Trailblazer (Callie) as well as StopnWatch (Travon) and 6 mil. (Austin).
Moreover, it was incredibly heartening to see the team bounce back from not
having had a particular good races at last week's 1st League Jamboree. Now the
team is poised to do very well at next league meet Tuesday, September 29 on our
home course and I think several runners on the team can still make
All-Conference or receive Honorable Mention if these same individuals continue
to perform as well as they did yesterday!
First on the girl's team with Tajah Thomas not feeling great and Callie
Green struggling for more than a week with some mysterious ailment that was
causing major cramping, both of them rebounded with P.R. performances finishing
3rd and 4th respectively out of field of 52 runners. In addition, Kendall Green
smashed her Personal Best (P.B.) for the season by 1:40 with a time of 24:53
which is 1:04 faster than her best time last year and there are still seven
meets remaining. She also like Tajah and Callie earned a medal finishing 17th.
Finally, special recognition goes to Sara Schroeder-Crespillo who earned her
first ever cross country medal finishing 20th while posting yet another all-time
fastest 5k for herself.
9-17 - Delton-Kellogg Invitational
Similar to Tuesday, the girl's team struggled at the Delton Invit. with Callie
James needing to stay out of the race to recover from some unknown ailment and
Tajah once again not feeling her best though she positioned herself well at the
first mile mark running 7th overall before fading over the last couple of miles.
Nonetheless, newcomer Sara Schroeder Crespillo once again bettered her P.R. that
she set earlier in the week by :25 and Freshman runner Nareai McPherson who
earlier week didn't think she could finish a 5k dropped a whopping 2:57 off the
P.R. she had set two days earlier finishing 68th out of 90 runners in the field
and running 4th for the team. It is for these reasons both Sarah and Nareai
fittingly deserve this race's Golden Shoe Awards.
9-15 - BCS Bridgman Jamboree
The week started this Tuesday, September 15 with the 1st Jamboree at
Bridgman. In this meet both the boy's and girl's teams didn't comparatively run
as well as they had the three previous meets. Nonetheless, the boy's and girl's
finished 4th in the league meet out of eight teams in the league.
On the girl's side, our Top 2 runners (Tajah Thomas & Callie James)
struggled but Kendall Green and Sara Scroeder Crespillo stepped up and were
worthy receipts of the Golden Shoe award with Kendall establishing a new P.B.
for the season by 1:03 and Sarah by :56.
9-9 - Comstock Tri
First, I want to congratulate both the girl's and
boy's team for having great races.
On the girl's side, they dominated the White Pigeon
team i.e., five runners before their No. 2 finished and beating Lawrence a team
that had beat them on 8/21 winning this time in dramatic fashion by 1 point. At
the mile mark, I believe Kendall Green was running behind Lawrence's 4th runner
and Sara Schroeder Crespillo and Patricia Sivley were behind Lawrence's 5th
runner and all three of them showed a lot of heart by finishing ahead of these
runners. If any of the three had not changed position, the team would have
instead of winning by 1 point would have lost by a point.. Furthermore, all the
girl's on the team were within approximately a minute off their personal bests
for the season even though our course is much tougher than the first two courses
we have run on. Despite this, Kendall got a personal best time this season by 36
seconds running in 27:02.
Lastly, I would like to award the Golden Shoe
awards but similar to the previous two races where the team ran exceedingly
well it makes it very hard to only single out a few runners, nonetheless, I
would like to give special recognition to these runners:
Girl's Team:
Tajah Thomas (Senior but 1st year runner winning
her 1st high school race)
Kendall Green (Setting a season personal best and
moving ahead of Lawrence's 4th runner)
Sara Schroeder Crespillo (1st race running for the
team and finishing as the No. 4 on the team while helping secure the win against
Lawrence)
8-27 - Marshall Invitational
The team ran exceptionally recording 8 lifetime P.R.'s out of the 11 that
ran with Austin Salome missing his lifetime P.R. by only 9 seconds.
On the girl's side for the second meet in a row they scored as a team (last
meet was the 1st time in five years this happened) and all six runners crossed
the finish line. In so doing the girl's finished 6th out of 7 team and only 8
pts. out of 5th place in a very strong field. Leading a second one to punch was
first year runner Tajah Thomas in 23:05 ( P.R. by 1:45) and Callie James ran
23:12 (P.R. by 23 seconds) who both medalled for their respective grades with
Tajah taking 7th place among Seniors and Callie taking 6th place among
Sophomores. The remaining four runners all ran very well with Freshman Patricia
Sivley running 3rd for the team at 27:17 dropping a 1:19 off her first high
school race and first year runner Sophomore Katie Rooney who ran 5th for the
team in 28:37 (P.R. by 1:44) making the biggest improvements. Junior Kendall
Green also improved over the 1st race running 4th for the team in 27:38 (23
second faster) and Junior Samantha Huffstutter was able to overcome some health
problems to successfully finish the course after dropping out of the 1st race in
8-21 - Lawrence Quad
Team Scores for the Girl's Teams
1. Lawrence 52 pts.
2. Comstock 55 pts.
3. Paw Paw 57 pts.
4. Hartford 68 pts.
Out of field of 34 runners individually the girl's finished:
4. Callie James 23:42
7. Tajah Thomas 24:50
12. Kendall Green 28:01
13. Patricia Sivley 28:36
19. Katie Rooney 30:21
Samantha Huffstetter DNF
In the girl's race, Callie the top runner from last year's team and team
captain finished with a P.R. while Tajah, Patricia, and Katie ran in their first
high school cross country race and all ran outstanding. Kendall a Jr. on the
team and 2 yr. varsity performer had a solid race which propelled the team to
its high finish.