2012 - Summary

2012 Cross Country

Summary of a Season

Unofficially the season started in June 2012 when a small contingent of guys went to Pisgah and Dupont in the mountains of eastern Carolina. The core of runners ran less mileage than previous groups had, but it was a decent three days of training. Daniel Beamer, a rising junior, was actually the King of Black Mountain since he made it the furthest after 45 minutes of running.

Twenty six boys tried out for the team in August and ran the 3 mile time trial on the track. Not that many made it all the way to November though; in fact, there were only sixteen die-hards running at PAC-6. The girls started with a few and ended with just that – a few. Captain Kreiling and Clark maintained the new standards and set the tone for a memorable season.

The boys left Durham really early on the 25^th of August which was days before the official start of the school year to run at McAlpine Park in Charlotte. The Providence Invite was won by Bakri of Cary who would blast through the season and win the individual crown too. Broughton dominated and never skipped a beat throughout the season. Nikolaus Kreiling ran faster than Chris Barron, who had previously run the fastest 5000 meter race in 16:05. Nicky ran 15:56 for 9^th place while his teammate and fellow junior classman, Daniel Beamer, raced to 14^th place with an impressive 16:08. Romel Garcia followed suit and ran a personal best of 17:20. Jack, formerly known as Oliver, Smith returned to form when he ran 18:15 and helped the Falcons to a 13^th place finish out of 44 teams.

A large contingent of freshmen ran their first high school races and one even managed to run in the 18’s. Andrew Spencer hit the line in 18:35 and kept going right into the top 10 on the team, then the top 7, and then the scoring 5. The JV managed to place 10^th out of 33 teams which showed great promise.

Both teams travelled to South View High School to run the Jungle Run and despite a late afternoon storm, the races went on as scheduled. The JV boys were led by senior Patrick Connelly who ran under 18 for the first time and won the race in 17:56. Slentz had a great race to and improved upon his 19:02 PR from 2011 when he finished in 18:11 and second overall. Greyson Meyer ended up 5^th overall with a PR of 18:50. Christian Long ’16 and Wesley Ellis ’16 were 14^th and 21^st respectively. The team was second overall out of 18 teams.

The girls’ team got off to a rough start as they finished 16^th out of 18 teams. Clark led the way in 22:25 and 67^th place while Geoffrion was 72^nd. The trio of Vanessa Canuto ‘13, Kalin Fraker ’15 and Taylor Grissom ’14 rounded out the scoring for the Lady Falcons.

The boys had better luck but were not able to bring home the hardware. Despite going 2-3 in the race, the team placed 5^th with 199 points. Garcia ran well again with a 17:32 while Smith set a new personal record and ran 17:56. Kreiling and Beamer worked from the back of the front pack to the front but couldn’t catch Hall, who ironically would beat Kreiling by 2 seconds to capture the last All-State place. The 16:05 Nicky ran was good enough for 2^nd while Beamer ran another great time of 16:17 for 3^rd. The team winner, Millbrook, would actually go on to qualify at the Mideast Regional and finish well in the 4A State meet.

The first duel meet of the season for the girls was against Orange High at home on the 5^th of September. The ‘Friendly’ went well as the Falcons beat the 3A opponents from Hillsborough 28-31. Eryn Clark ’14 finished second overall on a course that measure 4500 meters. Freshman Rachel Geoffrion made her presence known when she finished 5^th in the 85 degree heat. Senior Vanessa Canuto, sophomore Kalin Fraker, and sophomore Taylor Grissom rounded out the top 5 while juniors Meagan Saunders, Kaleigh Roe and freshman Sam Armistead rounded out the scoring.

The boys got a perfect score 15-50 when Spencer, Kreiling, Sean Long ’14, Mitchell Slentz ’14, Smith took the top 5 spots. In fact, the team took the top 11 spots from the Orange squad which would later qualify for the NCHSAA State Championships.

The Durham Academy Invitational was cancelled because of excessive rains during the course of the week which left the campus course saturated.

The PAC-6 conference meets started when Jordan hosted Hillside and an undermanned East Chapel Hill squad; the East scoring didn’t count towards conference records but the sweep of Hillside did. Kreiling and Beamer wouldn’t allow a freshman from East to take first prize, so they outran him the last mile and went 1-2 in 18:19 and 18:20 on the modified course which measured just under 5000 meters. Spencer gave it a good run, but he finished 4^th overall. Meyer and Long did the rest of the scoring when they finished in 5^th and 6^th respectively.

The girls scored 16 against Hillside’s 46 because Clark’s 2^nd, Canuto’s 4th, Geoffrion’s 6^th , Fraker’s 9^th and Grissom’s 13^th. East managed to handle us despite not running their top girls and had 25 to our 33 points.

ADIDAS at the Wake Medical Soccer Complex (formerly known as SAS) offered all the opportunity a young runner would want to run a great race and a couple of guys really took advantage of the ideal conditions and fast race. One of the shockers of the day was when Justice Scott ’16 ran to 23^rd place and ran 19:06. Freshmen Austin Rooks ran closely behind and closed in 19:25 and 31^st place. Coleman Deans ’16 and Vincent Enierga ’16 ran personal bests and helped the guys to finish 6^th out of 16 teams.

Five out of the nine guys in the Championship race set personal bests which helped us get 20^th out of 36 teams. Meyer ran 18:13, Long 18:07, Spencer hit a landmark of 17:59, Connelly ran great with a 17:36 and Kreiling rewrote the record books. Nicky finished in an impressive 6^th place overall because he ran 15:33! The time put him in the top 100 All-Time for high school runners on the Championship course.

September 25, 2012 was a beautiful day to race and the Falcons defeated Riverside, Hillside and Northern at home on the new course. Kreiling and Beamer took care of business by beating Colton Lawson who as a freshman (2011) qualified for the 4A meet as an individual. The boys ran a respectable 18:06 while Garcia was just 10 seconds behind and in 5^th place. Despite his best efforts Spencer finished 6^th and Smith in 7^th. Jordan’s 21 points against Northern was good enough and the perfect 15 against Riverside and Hillside was definitely enough.

The girls did not get any of the top 3 spots but ran really well as a team to beat Northern, Riverside and Hillside. Eryn Clark managed 4^th, Geoffrion 5^th, Canuto 6^th, Saunders 7^th and Fraker 8^th. The 27 points was good enough to beat Riverside’s 29; Jordan scored 26 against Northern’s 33; Jordan 15 outran Hillside’s 48.

Hagan Stone Park hasn’t been so kind to us, but the 2012 team represented very well. Coleman Deans broke 20 for the first time while classmate Justice Scott placed 12^th with a PR of 18:32. The only PR run by a guy in Varsity was Mitchell Slentz who ran 18:03. Kreiling placed 3^rd overall in 16:19 which happens to be the fastest time ever run at Hagan Stone by a Jordan harrier. Beamer was far behind in 6^th and 16:28. Spencer crossed the line in 18:09 while Garcia finished the historic 5k in 18:17. The team managed 6^th out of 23 teams.

The course was still a little sloppy from a week of heavy rains, but the weather was nice for the runners. The girls’ team placed 15^th out of 18 teams despite ‘riding the monster in the woods’ for good luck. Clark set a new Personal Record when she ran 21:19 for 38^th place. Geoffrion followed suit with 21:42 and 45^th place. Canuto, Grissom and Roe rounded out the top 5 and scoring to total 344 points.

The City-County Championships were bumped back a week because Durham Academy’s campus was still soaked from the rains. The weather was beautiful the day of the meet and Nikolaus Kreiling took full advantage of it by outrunning the field to win (16:30) and become only the 3^rd male from JHS to win the crown; Hall won it in 1998 and Bean in 1993. It was the first time the Falcons had gone 1-2 though because Beamer finished 2^nd in 16:41. Despite not placing any other runners in the top 15, the Falcons garnered 57 points and beat out NCSS&M by 2 points. Andrew Spencer ran a PR of 17:54 for 16^th and Patrick Connelly ran 17:55 for 17^th. Romel Garcia managed 18:10 and 21^st place.

Greyson Meyer overcame some GI issues to win in 18:18. Mitchell Slentz was 3^rd in 18:34 and Austin Rooks broke the 19 mark for 4^th overall. His 18:51 may have been out of fear after Coach Mulligan ripped him pretty good just before the race. Justice Scott continued racing well and hit the ‘tape’ in 18:56 for 5^th. If a score was kept, the Falcons surely would have won.

The Gray Cup stayed at NCSS&M because they outran the girls for 43 points while we had 51. The team did manage to get 3 All-City-County awards because Eryn Clark was 3^rd overall in 21:28 while her mentee was just 4 seconds behind running another PR. Canuto looked like the Vanessa-of-old when she raced to 9^th and earned honors for the 3^rd year. Fraker finished 18^th in 23:20 and Grissom in 23:30. Freshman Colleen Scott started and finished her first race in 25:31 while Risper Ochieng ran 25:48 during her first one. The boys and girls combined to score 118 points which wasn’t enough to bring home the Cullen Cup; NCSS&M scored 112.

Jordan hosted the PAC-6 Championships on the 16^th of October under ideal conditions. The East Chapel Hill girls dominated and eventual State Championship runner-up, Pegah, won the race by a large margin. Clark ran first for the Falcons yet again and ran 21:52 while Geoffrion missed All-Conference honors when she finished in 11^th (22:24). Canuto was 12^th, Fraker 13^th and Grissom 18^th to get 61 points (2^nd).

The JV boys’ runners represented well and if scores were kept, they would have been a close second to East Chapel Hill. This was despite a 2^nd place finish by Grey Meyer in 18:27 and 3^rd place finish by Mitchell Slentz a second behind. Wesley Ellis ran for 7^th and an impressive 19:27. His classmate, Rooks, was a second behind.

The Varsity boys didn’t run fast enough and were outmatched even though Nikolaus Kreiling won the race in spectacular fashion. His 16:19 was better than East’s top 2 runners who he outkicked with 200 meters to go. Beamer bounced back with 4^th place overall and 16:54 clocking. Patrick Connelly took 9^th and a coveted All-Conference medal because he ran 17:59. Garcia missed the medal stand by one and ran 18:10 while his freshman teammate, Spencer, ran 13^th and 18:15 overall. A 1-5 gap of 1:56 resulted in 38 points to East’s 30.

The Mideast Regional at Wake Medical Soccer Complex (SAS) was run under breezy and mild conditions. The girls were 14^th out of 17 teams with 374 points and led by the freshman. Rachel ran her best on the last day to finish 40^th. Her 20:51 was over half a minute faster than her best. Canuto raced to 74^th overall with a 21:41 in her final race as a Falcon. Fraker almost broke the 22 barrier with a 22:07 for 82^nd. Clark limped her way to a 22:21 while Grissom finished 100^th overall in 23:07.

Despite a fantastic 1-5 average, the boys only managed 9^th place with 256 points. Garcia was 92^nd (18:08), Connelly was 77^th (17:49) and Spencer was 72^nd with an impressive 17:40 which eclipsed his best. Despite looking back numerous times the final 100 meters, Daniel Beamer ran a personal best 16:03 and finished in 9^th place. His performance was the second best by an individual from a team that did not qualify for the championships. Kreiling was the other individual and he ran 15:55 for 6^th place. These All-Regional performances allowed them spots on the Mideast team of individuals at the 4A championships at Beeson Park.

Nikolaus Kreiling got out to a good start and was in the front pack at a half mile (with the exception of Bakri Abushouk from Cary who was in front by himself). Beamer was at the back of the big back but in good position. At the mile, Kreiling had fallen back a little but was still in good position (4:55). Beamer had fallen back some, but he too was still in the top 25. The middle went poorly as Kreiling fell off the pace and dropped out of the top group; Beamer fell off the pace significantly. Although Kreiling finished the last mile strong and passed numerous runners, he came up a bit short and finished 11^th overall – one spot off All-State. His 16:02 was only seconds off while Beamer ran 16:45 and finished 66^th overall.