2011 Meet Summaries

Charleston Invitational:
Mahomet raced 12 other teams in this invitational and came out in 1st place.  Our team was fortunate to have beaten two state placing teams from last year.  Mattoon placed 17th and Mt. Zion placed 6th in state last year.  Our lead runner was John Butcher who ran a 15:56.   This is the fastest opening time for Mahomet-Seymour in at least the last 13 years.  He also ran more summer miles than any Mahomet-Seymour runner that we have record of going back at least 12 years.  John was only 17 seconds behind one Mt. Zion runner that placed 14th in state last year.  He was also only 4 seconds behind a Mt. Zion runner that placed 31st in state last year.  A runner needs to place in the top 25 at state to be given the title of being an all state runner.  John's time compared to the Mt. Zion runners who placed well in state last year gives us an indication of where he has potential to be in the end of the season if he continues to work hard and improve.  With the quality of teams at this invitational it is hard to earn a medal.  Other medalist from our team in the Varsity race include Lucas Prather at 9th, Jonathan Schaap at 10th, Forrest Smoes at 12th, and Cale McCormick at 16th.  All of these runners ran in the 16's which is a great starting point.  We were very fortunate that cross country rookie Cale McCormick ran with such intensity.  He was our fifth runner and his place finished off our team score allowing us to beat Mt. Zion.  His time was an incredible time for his first cross country race.  He has been a tremendous addition to our team.  Sophomores Chris Carlton and James Williams really stepped it up to run well in our Varsity top 7.   It isn't easy to run against some of the state's best returning runners as an underclassman, but they represented our team well.

In the open race, the meet champion was one of our captains, Bobby Butler.  Junior Bobby Butler won the open by 10 seconds.  Bobby's work ethic in our team's optional summer runs and morning workouts really helped him towards running so well.  Captain Dan Lewis and captain Kyle Applequist were also medalist in the open race by placing 5th and 12th. 

I was extremely pleased with the entire team's effort.  Last year the temperature was 65 degrees.  This year it was over 90 degrees.  The high heat took its toll on all the runners in the field and didn't allow for many personal bests on any team represented at the meet.  Our runners have been putting in lots of miles in the heat of the 100 degree days which has left them physically fatigued.  We did have six of our fourteen runners that improved from last year's race.  Forrest Smoes and John Butcher improved despite having run such fast times last year that they didn't much much more room to improve.  James Williams (1:09) and Bobby Butler (1:23) improved over 1 minute each from just a year ago.  Two of our most impressive performances of the day came from Nathaniel Cebulski and Daniel Middendorf.  Nathaniel improved 2:45 from last year to this year and Daniel improved 3:09.  Both Nathaniel and Daniel have really worked hard in the past year to improve their intensity and endurance. 

A lot of our success as a team comes from the support we get from others in creating a caring, family atmosphere.  We have parents that volunteer to cook hamburgers for the team at our meets.  We have numerous parents that provide cookies and other food for the boys as well.  We have two coaches that volunteer their time to help coach the boys (Todd Lafond and Gary Garrison).  This year many of the boys' mothers are going above and beyond the call of duty to help raise money for the teams so we can keep this environment  going.  Every Friday night we have parents who host a pasta party for the entire team.  The atmosphere that the parents and volunteer coaches have created has really helps make this team really a special team for me to be part of as a coach.  I know it helps the runners enjoy the grueling sport a lot more.

We had 3 seniors (John Butcher, Lucas Prather, and Cale McCormick), 1 junior (Jonathan Schaap), and 2 sophomores (Forrest Smoes and Chris Carlton) earn a spot in our top 10 Fastest Times at the Charleston Invitational list.
2011 Charleston results.
 
Springfield Invitational:
Mahomet raced 23 other teams and came out 1st again.  This is the first time our boys have won this meet since adding this tough invitational to our schedule in 2004.  Our boys beat 3 current state ranked teams (Springfield - ranked 6th, Chattam Glenwood - ranked 19th, and Galesburg - ranked 24th).  Our boys managed to beat the following teams that placed in the top 20 at state last year (Springfield - 2nd, Chattam Glenwood - 10th, Mattoon - 17th, and Sacred Heart - 18th).  Jonathan Schaap, Lucas Prather, and John Butcher ran the fastest times that anyone from our school has run on this challenging course.  Jonathan Schaap led the team with the fastest time on this course by a Mahomet-Seymour runner with a time of 15:47.  The meet was won in 15:50 in 2009 with a time of 15:50 by the 2010 state champ.  This shows just how fast this time was.  So needless to say, we are extremely impressed by Jonathan's time.  Lucas Prather ran the fastest time a Mahomet-Seymour senior has ever run on this course (15:53), Jonathan Schaap ran the fastest time a Mahomet-Seymour junior has run on this course (15:47), and Forrest Smoes ran the fastest time any Mahomet-Seymour sophomore has ever run on this course (16:14).  17 of our 18 runners ran 3 mile season bests despite the fact that this course is known for being extremely slow.  Traditionally we only have one of our runners each year able to run a season best on this course.  Seven of our runners ran lifetime bests (Cale McCormick, Jonathan Schaap, Kyle Appelquist, Chris Carlton, Nathaniel Cebulski, Ethan Russell, Dhairav Vakil, and James Williams).  6 of our 7  runners earned a medal in the varsity race (Jonathan Schaap, Lucas Prather, John Butcher, Forrest Smoes, Cale McCormick, and Ethan Russell).  They only gave out 25 medals in this race to split among 24 teams.  We were pleased to have earned 6 of them. 

In the freshman race we only had two runners so we weren't able to earn a team score.  However, Ryan Huff ran a lifetime best in the 2 mile race by over 2 minutes.  William Wolf (12th) earn a medal by placing in the top 15.  

In the third race our boys won the open race for the first time in school history.  Kyle Appelquist and Chris Carlton led our team placing 3rd and 4th.  Also earning a medal were James Williams (9th), Dhairav Vakil (10th), and Curt Kupferschmid (13th).  Senior runners Dan Lewis and Nick Ross ran an excellent 6th and 7th to round out the top 7 for the open race.  This showed the great depth that our team currently has developed. 

The coaches couldn't be more pleased with the efforts of all of our boys.  Many teams only have a few runners that try.  Our boys give a great effort no matter what position they are on the team.  They all bring a lot of respect to our team and to the sport.  Coach Gary Garrison thought it was the best all around team performance he has seen from the boys cross country team in a decade.  Coach Neal Garrison would agree as it was just amazing to have our boys win both the varsity and open team titles. I have never seen  our team run more competitive than I did at this invitational.  It would have been impressive to watch even if it hadn't been our team.  This was truly a great team effort from 20 individual runners to have such an amazing result. 

We had six sophomore runners (Forrest Smoes, Ethan Russell, Kyle Appelquist, Chris Carlton, James Williams, and Dhairav Vakil), one junior runner (Jonathan Schaap), and five senior runners (Lucas Prather, John Butcher, Cale McCormick, Elijah Johnson, and Dan Lewis) earn a spot in our top 10 fastest times and/or places at the Springfield Invitational.   Fastest times at the Springfield Invitational list.  
2011 Springfield results.
Peoria Notre Dame Invitational:
The Peoria Notre Dame meet claims to host over 3000 runners and to have 106 schools represented.  Schools from three state were represented (Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois).  12 of the top 25 state ranked AAA schools (the largest schools in the state) and 6 of the top 25 AA schools raced at this invitational.  Our boys finished the highest they have ever finished in this high caliber invitational.  Our previous highest team finish was 26th.  This year the boys placed 14th.  In the process, our team beat both AAA state ranked teams and four AA state ranked teams (U-High Normal ranked 4th in state, Springfield ranked 9th in state, Peoria Notre Dame ranked 11th in state, and Chatham Glenwood ranked 18th in state).  Our team was ranked 12th in the state before this meet.  It is nearly impossible for all of a team's runners to run their personal bests in the same meet. 

One of the main goals in running is to have a personal best no matter what the team score is.  The coaches were extremely pleased with the team as we had 19 of our 21 runners run a season best time and 13 of our 21 runners run a lifetime best.  The runners who didn't run season bests were within just seconds of matching their bests. 

Our freshman/sophomore team opened up the day by finishing 28th.  Most of the fresh/soph team ran lifetime bests which inspired the varsity boys to run harder when their turn came up.  In the fresh/soph race the following runners had lifetime bests: William Wolf, Dhairav Vakil by 12 seconds, James Williams by 30 seconds, Chris Carlton by 49 seconds, Nathaniel Cebulski by 1 minute and 26 seconds, Ryan Huff by 1 minute and 43 seconds, and Daniel Middendorf by 1 minute and 55 seconds.  Chris Carlton led the fresh/soph team by running in the 16s for the first time in his life with a 16:43.

In the varsity race we were allowed to run 10 runners.  All 10 ran season bests and 9 of the 10 ran lifetime bests.  Lucas Prather by 6 seconds, Forrest Smoes by 8 seconds, Jonathan Schaap by 8 seconds, Cale McCormick by 13 seconds, Ethan Russell by 14 seconds, Nick Ross by 17 seconds, John Butcher by 18 seconds, Dan Lewis by 36 seconds, and Bobby Butler by 56 seconds.

In the open race, John Williams and Brian Plotner both ran season bests by over a minute.

Lucas Prather ran the fastest time we have ever had run at this meet with a 15:21.  In fact, this is the fastest time run by a Mahomet-Seymour runner in any race for over a decade.  Lucas Prather and John Butcher ran the fastest senior times ever at this meet with a 15:21 and 15:34.  Jonathan Schaap ran the fastest junior time that we have ever had at this meet with a 15:39.  Forrest Smoes ran the fastest time we have ever had a sophomore run at this meet with a 15:58.  This is the most amount of runners that our team has had run in the 15s on a legit 3 mile course at the same meet in the history of our program.  We also had 4 runners run in the 16s.  Elijah Johnson 16:11, Cale McCormick 16:23, Ethan Russell 16:27, and Chris Carlton 16:43.  This is one of the best performances in the history of our program. 

We like to recognize improvement over a career.  We have a most improved over a career top performance list.  Runners have to improve 3 minutes or more from their first 3 mile race in their high school career to their best time.  We have 8 of our 22 runners on that list.  Dan Lewis, Nick Ross, Brian Plotner, Lucas Prather, John Williams, Daniel Middendorf, and two new additions in Nathaniel Cebulski and John Butcher.  John Butcher improved 3:07 over a career, Nick Ross 3:29, Lucas Prather 3:42, John Williams 3:49, Brian Plotner 3:58, Nathaniel Cebulski 4:32, Daniel Middendorf 5:40, and Dan Lewis 7:54.

We had three sophomores (Forrest Smoes #1, Ethan Russell #3, and Chris Carlton #6), one junior (Jonathan Schaap #1), and four seniors (Lucas Prather #1, John Butcher #2, Elijah Johnson #5, and Cale McCormick #6) earn a spot in our top 10 fastest times list  at the Peoria Notre Dame Invitational.  Fastest times at the Peoria Notre Dame Invitational list.  
2011 Peoria Notre Dame Results.
  
East Peoria Invitational:
Our team won the East Peoria Invitational for the first time in our team's history of going to the meet.  They out scored larger AAA teams and three AA state ranked teams to place first of 19 teams represented at the meet.  16 of our 18 finishers ran lifetime bests on the 2.95 mile course.  In 2005 we placed 9th.  In 2006 we placed 10th.  In 2007 we placed 9th.  In 2008 we placed 5th.  In 2009 we placed 9th.  In 2010 we placed 2nd.  The top 3 teams earned a team trophy.

This team has such great character and work ethic that it is really fun to coach them.  It is just icing on the cake that they are winning major invitationals at the same time. 

This past week dyestat.com (ESPN's web site for high school sports) said that our boys were the hottest team behind returning state champ Bellvidere in AA cross country.  They moved the boys state ranking from 12th to 4th after their strong finish in the previous week's invitational.

Most years we are impressed if we have one to three runners run in the 16 minute range or better.  We had a total of nine runners break into the 16's at the East Peoria Invitational.  Kyle Appelquist 16:40, Chris Carlton 16:35, Ethan Russell 16:11, Cale McCormick 16:09, Elijah Johnson 16:05, Forrest Smoes 15:52, John Butcher 15:37, Lucas Prather 15:24, and Jonathan Schaap 15:18.  This was the first time Kyle ran in the 16s so we were extremely happy for him.  James Williams just missed the 16s when he ran a 17:00.  Curt Kupferschmid, Dhairav Vakil, and Bobby Butler all stand a chance to break into the 16s in the next few weeks. 

Ryan Huff and Nick Ross had a milestone race by breaking the 20 minute mark with a 19:27 and 19:34.  Jeff Coburn improved his season best by a minute and 35 seconds to run in the 20's.  If all goes well this season, we hope to see all of our runners run in the 18 minute range this season. 

Our runners have been working hard all season and have made drastic improvements since last year.  From last year to this year our runners had the following improvements:  Dan Lewis - 22 seconds, Elijah Johnson - 23 seconds, Lucas Prather - 28 seconds, Forrest Smoes - 33 seconds, Curt Kupferschmid - 34 seconds, John Williams - 38 seconds, Ethan Russell - 52 seconds, John Butcher - 58 seconds, Jonathan Schaap - 58 seconds,  Chris Carlton - 65 seconds, Kyle Appelquist - 75 seconds, Bobby Butler - 100 seconds, and Nick Ross - 106 seconds.  They have been extremely disciplined in their training and it is great to see it paying off. 

Jonathan Schaap ran the fastest time we have ever had run at this meet with a 15:18. 
Lucas Prather ran the fastest senior time ever at this meet with a 15:24. 
Jonathan Schaap ran the fastest junior time ever with a 15:18. 
Forrest Smoes ran the fastest sophomore time ever with a 15:52. 

We had three individuals earn medals: Jonathan Schaap 5th, Lucas Prather 7th, and John Butcher 13th. 

We ran all of our runners in the varsity race.  The fresh/soph race was won in 16:40.  We had four sophomore boys (Smoes, Russell, Carlton, and Appelquist) in the varsity race that ran 16:40 or better. 

We had five sophomores (Forrest Smoes #1, Ethan Russell #3, Chris Carlton #5, Kyle Appelquist #8, and #9 James Williams),one junior (Jonathan Schaap #1), and four seniors (Lucas Prather #1, John Butcher #3, Elijah Johnson #5, and Cale McCormick #6) earn a spot in our team's top 10 fastest times list at the East Peoria Invitational. Fastest times at the East Peoria Invitational list.  
2011 East Peoria Results.

 U-High Invitational:
The team placed 1st out of 17 total teams.  This is the first time in the 9 years that we have been going to the meet that we won the invitational.  The boys managed to beat two state ranked teams, including 5th ranked U-High.  Our boys have been given a state ranking of 3rd for the past two weeks for their previous performances.  We had five runners run in the 15's which was a memorable moment for this team.  Elijah Johnson broke into the 15s for the first time in his life.  Dan Lewis broke into the 17s for the first time of his life.  Nick Ross and John Williams broke into the 19s for the first time on a 3 mile course in their life.  The team celebrated our 4th win out of 5 invitationals for the year.  

Despite last week being our highest mileage in workouts of the season, the majority of our runners still managed to run personal bests.  Our team had 13 of our 22 runners run lifetime 3 mile best times and 3 more run season bests.  John Butcher improved 1 second, Bobby Butler 5 seconds, Forrest Smoes 6 seconds, Dhairav Vakil 6 seconds, Brian Plotner 7 seconds,  Jonathan Schaap 13 seconds, Elijah Johnson 15 seconds, Curt Kupferschmid 16 seconds, Dan Lewis 22 seconds, Nathaniel Cebulski 23 seconds, Nick Ross 31 seconds, Kyle Appelquist 37 seconds, Daniel Middendorf 43 seconds, Ryan Huff 46 seconds, John Williams 1:02, and Jeff Coburn 1:40.

The following runners moved up on our team's most improved over a career list.  Nick Ross moved from #32 to #23, John Williams moved from #26 to #19, Nathaniel Cebulski moved from #17 to #15, Daniel Middendorf moved from #17 to #9, and Dan Lewis moved up higher for #3.

Daniel Middendorf earned enough varsity letter points to earn his first varsity letter.

 Jonathan Schaap ran the fastest time we have ever had run at this meet with a 15:24. 
Lucas Prather ran the fastest senior time ever at this meet with a 15:27. 
Jonathan Schaap ran the fastest junior time ever with a 15:24. 
Forrest Smoes ran the fastest sophomore time ever with a 15:52. 

We had four individuals earn medals: Jonathan Schaap 2nd, Lucas Prather 4th, John Butcher 6th, and Forrest Smoes. 

We had four runners in the open race earn one of the top 10 highest finishes that we have had at that invitational.  Dhairav Vakil finished 6th which is our team's highest finish ever in the invitational.  Bobby Butler 8th, Curt Kupferschmid 10th, and Dan Lewis 12th also earned a spot on the top ten list.

We had four sophomores (Forrest Smoes #1, Ethan Russell #5, Kyle Appelquist, and Chris Carlton #10), one junior (Jonathan Schaap #1), and four seniors (Lucas Prather #1, John Butcher #2, Elijah Johnson #5, and Cale McCormick #7) earn a spot on our teams' top 10 lists for the U-High Invitational.  
2011 U-High Invitational results.

Metamora Invitational:
The team placed 2nd out of 25 teams represented.  This is the highest place our team has ever scored in this invitational.  The Metamora Invitational doesn't have a very fast course, but it is the invitational to go to because it has so many state ranked teams showing up.  This year there were 7 state ranked teams out of the top 21 that came to race.  The team managed to beat 5 state ranked teams, but barely missed beating Glenbard South by just three points.  It was close enough that if one of our runners ran 1 second faster we could have made up those three points.  As a coach, I was extremely pleased with the teams' competitiveness.  They ran on very tired legs from the previous week's high mileage.  Our goal is to get them most prepared for the end of the season even if it means being a little less sharp in the beginning and middle of the season. 

Ryan Huff, Brian Plotner, and John Butcher ran season best times which is very hard to do on this course.  Ryan almost broke into the 18's with a great time of 19:08.  Brian had a major break through and improved his season best by 26 seconds. 

16 of our 19 runners returning from last year's race drastically improved their times.  Lucas Prather improved 16 seconds from last year's race, Elijah Johnson improved 17 seconds, Ethan Russell improved 27 seconds, Forrest Smoes improved 28 seconds, Kyle Appelquist improved 31 seconds, John Williams improved 31 seconds, Jeff Coburn improved 40 seconds, Brian Plotner improved 58 seconds, John Butcher improved 57 seconds, Jonathan Schaap improved 1:08, Chris Carlton improved 1:08, Bobby Butler improved 1:08, James Williams improved 1:25, Nick Ross improved 1:30, Daniel Middendorf improved 2:03, and Nathaniel Cebulski improved 4:34.

Nathaniel Cebulski and John Williams earned enough varsity letter points to earn their varsity letter for the year.

We had 7 of our runners run in the top 30 to earn medals.  John Butcher, Lucas Prather, Jonathan Schaap, Forrest Smoes, Elijah Johnson, Cale McCormick, and Ethan Russell.  This is quite a feat since their were so many state ranked teams.  Traditionally we have averaged getting about 3 medals a year.  This shows how strong the depth of this team is.  Even our #8 (James Williams), #9 (Chris Carlton), and #10 (Kyle Appelquist) runners for the day were faster than the other team's top 7 runners.

John Butcher ran the fastest time we have ever had run at this meet with a 15:29.
John Butcher ran the fastest senior time ever at this meet with a 15:29.
Jonathan Schaap ran the fastest junior time ever with a 15:42.
Forrest Smoes ran the fastest sophomore time ever with a 15:58.

We had five sophomores (Forrest Smoes #1, Ethan Russell #3, James Williams #7, Chris Carlton #8, and Kyle Appelquist #9), two juniors (Jonathan Schaap #1 and Bobby Butler #9), and four seniors (John Butcher #1, Lucas Prather #2, Elijah Johnson #4, and Cale McCormick #6) earn a spot in our team's fastest times at the Metamora Invitational list.  
2011 Metamora Invitational results.

Conference:
The team placed 2nd out of the 8 conference schools.  The team managed to beat 2 state ranked teams by beating Pontiac and Olympia.  However, state ranked U-High really rose to the occasion and came away with the team title.  Our boys tied the highest place our team has gotten in the Cornbelt Conference meet by placing 2nd.  Our team had three runners (Jonathan Schaap, Lucas Prather, and John Butcher) that gave it valiant effort to try to win the meet as an individual, but after leading the race for the first part of the race got broken down by breaking the wind for the other runners.  The wind was 20 mph with gusts of up to 30 mph throughout the race.  Our team managed to have the highest number of all conference runners since joining the Cornbelt Conference meet 26 years ago.  Jonathan Schaap placed 4th with a 15:34, Lucas Prather placed 7th with a 15:51, John Butcher placed 8th with a 15:51, and Forrest Smoes placed 10th with a 15:57.  Cale McCormick narrowly missed all conference status by a mere 4 seconds with an 11th place finish with a lifetime best of 16:01 which was a 21 second improvement from his best 3 mile time.  Sophomore Ethan Russell and Elijah Johnson rounded out our team by running 16:31 and 17:03 respectively.

In the open race, it was many of their last races of the season.  As we enter the state series starting next weekend with Regional we can only enter 7 runners.  We have intentionally increased the speed workouts in the past weeks and decreased the mileage in an attempt to get our runners to run their personal bests in the final race.  The wind increased to over 20 mph by the start of the open race.  Despite the wind that drastically reduced our runners' chances for a lifetime bests, we still had 7 lifetime bests out of 14 open runners.  Many of the others just missed their lifetime bests by just seconds which showed how determined of a group they are.  We have started to keep track of the fastest team averages for each of the invitationals that we run throughout the season and this group by far has been the fastest group of runners we have had as an entire team.  It is often easy to be motivated to run well when you win a medal at most meets, but the true heart of the team is most determined by the runners on the team that give it their all each meet with little to no chance of earning a medal.  Over the past few years, our guys in the middle and back of the pack have drastically improved.  Last year we ended the season by having all 22 runners under 22:24 or better.  This year we ended the season by having all 22 runners under 20:47 or better.  Most meets the team average was in the 17's for the 22 runners.
In the open, Chris Carlton 16:53, Curt Kupferschmid 17:08, Kyle Appelquist 17:10 led the team by placing 4th, 5th and 6th with a great pack.  James Williams showed as much courage as I have seen in a race as he was injured the entire race.  Rather than give up, he pushed through the race with a horrible limp.  It was quite a testament to his inner strength.  Dan Lewis, Dhairav Vakil, and Daniel Middendorf all placed in the top 7 for our team in the open race.  William Wolf used a lot of courage to finish his last race despite struggling with an injury.  Our seven runners that ran lifetime bests at the conference meet in the open race was Ryan Huff with a 4 second improvement, Jeff Coburn with a 6 second improvement, Nick Ross with a 15 second improvement, Daniel Middendorf with a 20 second improvement, Nathaniel Cebulski with a 41 second improvement, Curt Kupferschmid with a 45 second improvement, and Brian and Plotner with a 1:10 improvement. 

Jeff Coburn and Brian Plotner earned their Varsity letter at the Conference meet.

If a man is measured by their improvement, then these guys are worth their weight in gold.  We had four guys move up on our team's most improved over a career list with their improvements at the conference meet.  Nick Ross improved to #22 with a 4:13 career improvement.  Brian Plotner moved up to #19 with a 4:35 career improvement.  Nathaniel Cebulski moved up to #10 with a 5:37 improvement.  Daniel Middendorf moved up to #8 with a 6:07 career improvement.
John Williams and Dan Lewis ended their seasons as #21 with a 4:19 career improvement and #3 with 8:32 career improvement.

2011 Conference Results
The history of the cornbelt conference meet since 1986.
Conference Highest individual finishes. 

Regional:
The team placed 1st in the Regional meet.  They beat 10 other teams to win their third Regional title in the past six years.  The team's depth showed as they placed 6 runners in the top 12 spots.  The final team scores were Urbana 325 pts, Centralia 212 pts, Taylorville 198 pts, Effingham 189 pts, Salem 175 pts, Mattoon 139 pts, Champaign Central 133 pts, Champaign Centennial 112 pts, Charleston 111 pts, Mt. Vernon 110 pts, and Mahomet-Seymour with a low 32 pts.

We are only allowed to seven runners in the State series.  We are very fortunate to have 7 very strong runners to represent us in the State series this year.  The coaches were very proud of the boys as they ran very competitively to place as high as they did.  Our team had the most amount of runners in the top 10 than we have ever had at the Regional meet with five runners.  Lucas Prather 4th, Jonathan Schaap 5th, John Butcher 6th, Forrest Smoes 8th, and Cale McCormick 9th.  Ethan Russell just missed placing in the top 10 by less than 1 second.  We also tied the most amount of medal winners that we have had at the Regional meet since 1987.  Only the top five runners in the Regional meet earn a medal.  Lucas and Jonathan earned their all-Regional team medal.  Ethan Russell had the most improved race of the meet by running a 3 mile personal best by 15 seconds with a 16:12.  Sophomore Chris Carlton ran in his first Regional meet for our team and represented our team well.

The team will advance to the Sectional meet since they finished as one of the top teams in the meet. 

Regional top 10 individual finishers list.
The history of our team at the Regional.
2011 Regional Results.

Sectional
The team placed 2nd out of 21 teams at the Sectional meet.  Our team just missed winning the meet by a mere 4 points which comes down to a couple seconds from just one of the seven runners in a 15 minute race.  Any team that places in the top 5 in the Sectional meet qualifies the entire team for the State meet.  Our team qualified for the State meet for the first time in our school's history of being a AA team.  Our team last qualified for State in 1996 which was the last year our team was a A team.  Our previous highest AA Sectional finish was 7th. 

Our State qualifying team consists of Jonathan Schaap (junior), Lucas Prather (senior), Forrest Smoes (sophomore), John Butcher (senior), Cale McCormick (senior), Elijah Johnson (senior), and Ethan Russell (sophomore).  Our team's alternates are Chris Carlton (sophomore), Kyle Appelquist (sophomore), Dhairav Vakil (sophomore), James WIlliams (sophomore), and Curt Kupferschmid (sophomore). 

Jonathan Schaap earned All-Sectional runner honors by placing 9th with his second best 3 mile time of the year 15:29.  Any runner that places in the top 10 is awarded a medal and all-sectional honors.  In a close pack behind Schaap was Lucas Prather (12th) 15:40, Forrest Smoes (17th) 15:48, and John Butcher (18th) 15:48.  In all of the records that we have (which are 95% complete), this appears to be the first time in school history that we have had more than 2 runners in the top 20 at the Sectional meet.  Most years we have 0 or 1 runner in the top 20 finishers.  First year cross country runner, Cale McCormick placed 5th for our team by placing 27th with his second best time of the year 16:06.  Elijah Johnson (48th) and Ethan Russell (53rd) ran 16:33 and 16:38 to complete our 7 runner team.   The race of the day came from Forrest Smoes who ran a lifetime personal best and made our strong front three and stronger front four. 
 
The history of our team at the Sectional.
Our team's highest individual places 
Past State qualifiers. 
2011 Sectional Results.

State
The team placed 5th at the State meet out of the 140 plus teams that started the class AA State series.  Our team missed placing 3rd and earning a team trophy by just 22 points.  It was an incredible year from the start to the finish.  The team started the year not being State ranked and finished the season by placing 5th.  In the spring and early summer my goal for the team was to have them qualify for State for the first time in AA history (1997 until now).  After a few early wins at major invitationals we realized that we had better reassess our team goals to make it higher.  The boys continued to show in every invitational that they ran that they were the best team we have had in the 42 year history of our program at all the meets we ran in.  About 2/3rds of the way through the season we realized we had a chance to be in the top 5 in State and if all went perfectly a top three finish.  The boys worked harder and harder throughout the season and gave it a great effort in the State series.  It was by far the best end of the year finish for our team since becoming AA.  The State meet is a very high pressure and high intensity event.  There are thousands of fans screaming and yelling at the runners to go faster or to pass other runners.  Most runners have a hard time with the pressure, but our boys handled it well. 

Jonathan Schaap and Forrest Smoes managed to run personal bests and finished 1st and 2nd for our team.  Jonathan finished 25th with a time of 15:18.  This place earned Jonathan All-State honors.  Jonathan had a tremendous last 4 races by earning All-Conference, All-Regional, All-Sectional, and All-State status.  Jonathan is only the 2nd All-State runner we have had since turning AA.  Our only other All-State AA runner was Jacob Mahaffey (class of 2008).  Jacob was at the State meet to recruit for his college XC team (Carthage College) and to cheer on his former teammates.  Jonathan is also only the 11th All-State runner in the 42 year history of our program.  Jonathan ran the fastest junior time that we have ever had at the State meet.  He also ran the 2nd fastest time for all grades for any Mahomet-Seymour runner since 1970.  The only person faster was our school record holder, Mark Johnson from 1974. 

Forrest Smoes had an incredible run as he even pointed to the crowd as he ran a lifetime best where he placed 48th.  He ran a 15:40 which is the 2nd fastest time that Mahomet-Seymour has had for any sophomore runner at State.  He was only beat by Mark Wieneke's time from back in 1978.  Forrest's time was the 9th fastest time ever for any Mahomet-Seymour runner of any grade in our 42 year history at this meet. 

One stride behind Forrest finished our third runner for the day, Lucas Prather.  Lucas ran a 15:42 to finish 49th.  He improved 28 seconds from his last year's State meet performance.  Lucas ran our 7th fastest senior time ever at State for a Mahomet-Seymour runner and his time was the 10th fastest time ever for any Mahomet-Seymour runner in any grade.

Close behind, John Butcher ran a 15:48 to place 58th.  John's time earned him the 8th fastest senior time we have ever had at State and the 13th fastest Mahomet-Seymour time of any grade runner at this meet.  All four of these runners ran in the 15's which is extremely hard to do at the State meet with most runners being similar ability and getting in each other's way.  Mahomet-Seymour has only had 16 runners previously to break 16:00 at the State meet and the most amount in one single year was two runners from Mahomet-Seymour.  To have four runners from the same team definitely helped establish this group as the strongest we have had at the State meet. 

Rounding out our team score was first year cross country runner, Cale McCormick.  Cale had an impressive first year and ended it by finishing 89th at State with a 16:06.  His time was only 5 seconds off his lifetime best showing he had a tremendous day.  Cale ran the 13th fastest senior time and 23rd fastest time of any Mahomet-Seymour runner in any grade at the State meet. 

Elijah Johnson completed his senior year by placing 134th with a time of 16:29.  Elijah was only a second off  his fastest State series time of his career.  His time helped to bump back other team's scores.  Before this year, this would have earned him the 6th highest AA finish we had ever had. 

Sophomore Ethan Russell ran a 16:32 to place 142nd.  This was the 11th fastest sophomore time we have had at the State meet.  Ethan finished off his sophomore year running every single one of his races faster than his previous year's best.  There were a total of 209 runners in the race and very few were underclassman.

The State meet experience was an incredible experience as the team had so many supportive fans.  The 7 runners had their incredibly caring teammates cheering for them the whole way.  They had teachers who drove up to watch, parents who came who didn't even have a runner in the top 7, Mahomet community members and neighbors of the runners, junior high cross country runners from our town, alumni, fellow students, and administration.  Our school's program is one of the few in the State that actually had administration and teachers that care enough about the students to give up a day to watch the State cross country meet. 

This team established themselves as the fastest team that Mahomet-Seymour has had at the State meet.  Our top 5 runners had a team average of 15:42.5 seconds per runner.  This beat our school's previous best at the State meet by 28.9 seconds.  Our 1978 team (Mark Wieneke, Kenny Rippy, Keith Walker, Joe Metcalf, Dale Wirth, John Clinebell, and David Roe) had a strong 16:11.4 top 5 runner team average.  This year's team also had the fastest top 7 runner average of any Mahomet-Seymour team at State with a 16:03.6 average.  This beat our school's previous best team effort at the State meet by 27.1 seconds.  Our 1995 team (Phillip Alexander, Neil Banwart, Josh Smith, Chad Avery, Scott DeWitt, Jesse Schweig, and Josh Mock) had a strong team average of 16:30.7.

The boys finished the season by winning 4 of their 6 invitationals and the Regional meet.  They only finished behind a total of four AA teams the entire season of which all were the teams that finished in front of them at the state meet.  They just missed beating the 2nd place State team at the Metamora invitational by 3 points.  They beat the 3rd place team (U-high) 4 times throughout the season, but fell short of beating them at Conference by only 9 points.  They beat the 4th place team (Springfield) 3 times throughout the season, but fell short of beating them at the Sectional meet by 4 points.  We definitely feel like we were a top 5 team in the State since only 4 teams managed to beat us in any race we ran all season long.

We realize that only 5 runners on a team earn the team score and only 7 of our 22 runners get the opportunity to get to race in the State series.  However, more than any year I have coached, I feel that this truly was a team effort.  From top to bottom, all 22 of our runners gave it their all to help the team train and race hard so that we could send 7 of the best runners in the State to represent us at the State meet.  In all of the invitationals that we ran this year, our team average (for all 22 runners) was the fastest team average we ever had in the history of those meets.  Some teams are carried by 1 or 2 stud runners, but our team's success was due to 22 runners pushing from the back to make everyone's time better. 

So please congratulate our entire team for our team doing well at State and the entire season as it was more than a 7 runner effort.

Seniors:  John Butcher, Elijah Johnson, Dan Lewis, Cale McCormick, Brian Plotner, Lucas Prather, Nick Ross
Juniors:  Bobby Butler, Jonathan Schaap, John Williams
Sophomores: Kyle Appelquist, Chris Carlton, Nathaniel Cebulski, Jeff Coburn, Kurt Kupferschmid, Daniel Middendorf, Ethan Russell, Forrest Smoes, Dhairav Vakil, James Williams
Freshman: Ryan Huff, William Wolf

It was definitely a memorable season.  I would like to thank all 22 of the runners for giving their best physical and mental effort all season.  They gave me and the team their hearts and I am extremely grateful. 

I would like to thank all the alumni and former coaches (especially Coach John King who coached for 29 years of the 42) for setting such a high standard for us to strive for. 

I would like to thank all of the parents who have been extremely supportive and generous throughout their son's cross country careers.  I think cross country feels more like a family than a team.  I think much of this has to do with the supportive parents.

I would like to thank all the fan support we had from our junior high team, to our alumni, to fellow students, to our teachers, and our administration.  The support means more than you can imagine. 

Much of our team's success this year has to go to our team's two volunteer coaches (Todd LaFond and Gary Garrison).  I only mention that they are volunteer (not because I think that makes them any less of a coach), but because I think it is impressive.  Few people are willing to give up their time.  But these two coaches sacrifice a lot to support the team.  Gary Garrison helps a ton behind the scenes, giving advice to the coaches and runners as well as coaching at the meets.  Todd LaFond is at all of our practices and meets to help shape these young men.  He is out in the heat, cold, and rain day after day to coach our boys without receiving a dime for it.  They both are incredible people with an enormous amount of running knowledge.  I counted on them more than ever this season. 

Most importantly I have to give the credit of our team's success to God.  While I know not everyone believes in God, I know without a doubt that there is a God and He has blessed our team beyond belief this year.  He has always blessed me in my personal running over the years and it is great to see him bless the runners that I get to coach as well.

MS State Qualifiers list.
2011 State Meet Results
 
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