Coach's Recap

9/23/2017

Harrison Invitational

Some say “when it rains, it pours”. The boys cross country team has experienced that concept in terms of transportation to meets this season. We have had NO BUS show up, we have had 2 busses show up, and now we had a tire blowout on 275 on the way to the meet. Thankfully, the driver was awesome and got to the side of the road safely. However, the meet was not going to wait for the Eagles, so we let technology take over. Cell phones were used to find parents close by and in groups of 3 or 4 or 5 runners, parents transported our team to Harrison for the meet. It made for another exciting morning, and as some say, “getting there is half the fun”.

Once the Eagles were settled in, it was time for some racing. The course was the same as years past, so flat and fast was the plan. 2 loops of the same area made for some confident early paces, then we had to hope that our training could survive the HEAT! After 1.5 miles, it was obvious that the Eagles came to Harrison to compete for the title! Clayton Virzi and Harris Craycraft were leading the field with Sean Vonderhaar and Peter Kroeger in the top 10 and running strong. Years of training and numerous summer miles were showing and the heat wasn’t going to be an issue for these men! But who would be our fifth man and where was he was certainly on Coach Ack’s mind. A contingent of runners passed before Will Stout and Dylan Mullarkey came by the halfway point, but the team title was still well within reach.

As the lead 4 wheeler made the climb up the last hill to the finish, senior Clayton Virzi was going to win his first meet championship in his career. Virzi finished in 16:40 and had run a strong 2nd half of the race, pulling ahead of teammate Harris Craycraft who finished 2nd overall in a time of 17:06. Peter Kroeger also finished in the top 10 with a strong 6th place finish. But where oh where was that elusive 5th man???? Unlike at the halfway point, this time we did not have to wait long. Freshman Dylan Mullarkey finished just 19 seconds behind our 4th man and capped off a fantastic last half of the race. It was certainly enough for the Eagles to claim the top spot in the team race, finishing 1st out of the 12 teams competing.

As the girls open got started, the choice by Harrison to start the races every 40 minutes made for an interesting choice. By 11 am, the temperature was passing 80 degrees and the boys open was just getting started. It was sunny, it was hot, and there was not much of a breeze. How would this play into the race? St. X didn’t seem to mind the heat as they proceeded to take 15 of the top 16 spots. Michael Faler, racing to get his varsity spot back, also didn't seem to mind the heat, setting a blistering pace for the first lap! Could he hold on and take his spot in the top 10 for Milford back? He was way ahead after 1 lap, but that 2nd proved to be quite formidable. Michael did earn the 10th position, but it was close. The heat had worn him down, but he survived and will be racing varsity in next meet. The open guys raced hard, but only Zach Saunders managed to set a career PR at Harrison. He is getting into shape, after joining the team late in the summer, so each week just gets better and better for Zach. It was another solid performance.

To recap, in spite of a blown tire, the Eagles made it to Harrison and took home lots of hardware, including their first championship of the season. Individual champion Clayton Virzi showed that he is a force to be reckoned with all season and will be an impact runner through the final weeks of the season. Dylan seized control of that important 5th man spot, but many team members have the potential to fill that all important position as the season comes to its championship phase. But without a doubt, the highlight of the meet was once again getting to spend some time with Coach Niemeyer and to help him become familiar with the 2017 Eagles in live action. It is always great to spend some time with the inspiration for Coach Ack and so many other Eagle runners over the years. No one could ever look upon this meet and consider any part of it bad, but afterall, we all know that there are NO BAD DAYS for any of us! The Eagles will crank up the training intensity this week and rest next weekend with no meets for the team. It will be the Ross Invite on October 7th next for the Eagles.

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Coach’s Recap

9/16/2017

Milford Invitational

The Milford Invite has become a great meet with numerous teams coming to race at Valley View each year.  After years of doing all of the work, Coach Ack and Coach Jorden decided to ask for help with the set up of the chute and the course.  What a welcome relief!  The 2017 cc parents responded and what used to take 3 or 4 hours was literally accomplished in 40 minutes!  If only those parents had the power to keep it from raining!  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday brought us overcast skies and rain off and on during the days and nights.  After practicing in the rain on the course on Tuesday, it was very obvious that this year could be quite a mess.  Several spots on the course had been repaired with loads of dirt being used to fill tire tracks and ruts, and all of those spots had become slippery, muddy messes.  As the week went on, the rain kept falling.  Luckily, by late Thursday all of the rain was gone and sunshine and warm temps were being forecasted.  But what about the mud???  Coach Ack spent Friday using the skills he had developed as a youth softball coach, raking and spreading a drying agent on the many spots on the course that were rough.  The sunshine and chemistry really helped and the course was ready for action!  

As the meet drew closer, our registration numbers topped 1400 athletes.  How would we fit them all on the course, or even trickier, in the parking lot!  Valley View was in charge of the parking issue, so all we had to worry about was the course.  Once again, our cc parents stepped up and we had every spot of the course covered by a volunteer, so let’s get the races started and see how the course does with so many kids!

The meet started with the boys varsity race.  It was a great morning to race and Clayton showed that he was ready to go!  He may have set a PR for the 400 meters, 800 meters, and 1600 meters as he headed out the main trail.  The team was facing league rivals Anderson, Loveland, Turpin, and Walnut Hills, so it was an ECC preview.  It didn’t take most fans long to realize that Anderson’s great runner, Joe Ingram was not competing today, so the top spot was up for grabs.  As the field completed the first loop, there was a solid pace being set by the leaders, and Milford was looking strong.  Was there going to be a changing of the guard in our top 5?  It looked like it might happen.  As the team headed down the half mile home stretch, Clayton Virzi demonstrated that the fast start was not a fluke, finishing in 6th place overall and first for Milford in a time of 16:37, over 80 seconds faster than last year at this meet!  Harris Craycraft also netted a top 10 finish in 16:52, beating last year’s time by a minute!  It was nice to have 2 Eagles up in the front of this huge pack!  Peter Kroeger and Sean Vonderhaar worked hard to keep the gap from 1 to 4 as close as possible, but it was freshman Dylan Mullarkey who had the best race of the day, earning a 5th man finish in 18:15, which was a career PR.  The hard work that Dylan has put in in practice really was put on display by this race.  The sky is the limit for this young man.  FYI, as a 9th grader, Clayton ran 19:21 at the Milford Invite!!!  Coach Ack was feeling confident in the team results, but in the 4 seconds that it takes these days to calculate results using Buckeye Timing, that confidence turned to disappointment!  No team championship today for the Eagles, and to add insult to injury, even Loveland squeaked ahead of the host school.  The final results had Anderson winning the meet (without their STUD), Loveland placing 2nd, and the Eagles taking the 3rd spot with scores of 106, 107, and 110 respectively.  So Coach Ack heads back to the drawing board to try to find more improvement from his squad before the ECC Championship meet in October!

The second race of the day for the boys team saw a record number of boys head to the starting line!  350 open boys were crammed into the starting boxes with St. X leading the way with over 100 athletes.  It was a thundering herd coming down the hill, but everyone made it through the gate and the Eagles were poised for a good race, despite the temperatures climbing into the upper 70’s.  It had been a week without sun, so it made for a great day to watch the race, but a pretty warm day to run.  Apparently, Payne Ackermann is not intimidated by the heat because he finished the course in a PR time of 19:30 and made himself a viable varsity candidate.  Equally impressive was Matthew Broxterman’s finish time of 20:50 which “shaved” over 4 minutes off his time from last year at Milford. WOW!  

When the meet had ended, all of the t-shirts were sold, Coach Cambron had finished biking the course for the 6th time of the day, and every post, cone, rope, and cup had been put away for the next time, 1197 runners had crossed the finish line and the Milford Invite was once again deemed quite the successful endeavor!  Thanks go out to Valley View, our cc parents, and to all of the kids who raced with us in 2017!

The Eagles will now prepare for the trip to God’s Country, known as Harrison, Ohio.  It will be flat.  It will be fast.  And hopefully, it will be a great day to be and Eagle.  But since THERE ARE NO BAD DAYS, when will it not be a great day to be an EAGLE???

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Coach’s Recap

9/2/2017

Xavier University High School Invitational

The Eagles looked to this weekend as a chance to travel back to Voice of America for another opportunity to run fast and place well against several ECC teams.  However, the weather  forecast made this seem like an unlikely event.  Many high schools, including MHS, cancelled the Friday night football games in expectation of terrible downpours and serious storms.  The chance for rain all night and into meet morning were pretty good.  But the Eagles had spent some quality time in the rain on Friday doing some team bonding core work, so the weather would not cause the team many problems on Saturday.

The morning started on a good note, as the bus was not only on time, but early.  In fact, 2 busses actually showed up to drive us to VOA, so all was good.  One team member was so excited to race that he actually drew the attention of a local law enforcement officer on his way to the bus, earning a little extra adrenaline (and a moving violation for speeding) for race time!!!  Upon arrival at VOA, the course looked great with hardly any wet spots or mud to be found.  Shockingly, the weather forecast may have been incorrect!  At 9 am, in the slightest of drizzle, the college men’s race started.  It would be fun to see just how fast the local college men would traverse the course that the Eagles would be facing in an hour.  Although last week’s high school stud Dustin Horter beat all of the college times, 25 of these college CC runners broke 16 minutes for 5K, showing how good one must be to compete at the next level.  It was their first race of the season, and it was cool to see them race so fast as a group.

By the time the Eagles took to the line, the rain had stopped and cool, nearly perfect conditions for racing had settled in on VOA.  All team members who were racing headed out in one large field this morning.  It was a massive collection of young men, but at the entrance to the course at 500 meters, Milford’s own Clayton Virzi had taken the lead!  With ECC rivals Turpin and Anderson in the field, including ECC 1600 meter champion Joe Ingram from Anderson, it was a daring plan for Clayton with the rest of the Eagles top 4 not too far behind.  The team needed to get out fast early in this race because the huge field could make it hard to move up in the first mile, and at that point, the team race could be over.  Coach Ack headed to his favorite spot at the 1.47 mile mark to await his squad.  3 big questions were waiting to be answered:  how would 9th grader Dylan Mullarkey run in his first race of the season, after looking so strong in workouts? How would Clayton react to the morning’s festivities?  Could Harris repeat his great week 1 race and lead Milford to a victory?  

As the team approached the halfway point, Clayton had settled into 2nd place behind Ingram with Harris in a solid 4th place position.  Anderson and Turpin filled most of the rest of the top 20 spots with Madeira looking very strong as well, especially for a D3 school!  It was going to be a crucial 2nd half of the race for the Eagles 3rd, 4th, and 5th men if the top ECC spot was going to be earned by Milford today.  The Eagles had worked hard this week, but hopefully they had something left for a strong surge to the finish.  When the field came by for the 2nd lap, Ingram looked very strong, but Clayton had him in his sights.  It was clearly the best race ever run by Clayton, but would an upset of a stud like Ingram be in the cards today?  Harris was solid, but it was that terrible feeling for a coach, searching for runners 3, 4 and 5 that left Coach Ack knowing that both Anderson and Turpin would beat the Eagles today.  At the finish, Clayton finished second overall in a career PR time of 16:23, the best time by a Milford Eagle in a few years.  Harris was solid, running 16:51 this week to finish 5th overall.  Sean Vonderhaar and Peter Kroeger both broke 18 minutes this week.  Will Stout continued his scoring role for the Eagles as our 5th finisher, with Brian Wang and Karl Chavez finishing as our top 7.  One question before the day started was where would freshman Dylan Mullarkey finish, after having some great runs in practice.  He just barely missed breaking 19 minutes in his first HS 5k, so he made it known that he would be chasing a varsity scoring spot this season.   

As the rest of the Eagles poured across the finish line, 15 Eagles broke 21 minutes, with Jared Shapiro joining Dylan under 20 minutes, earning those varsity sweats and bag.  Nice job, guys.  In all, 13 of the 19 runners who took to the starting line for Milford ran their CAREER PR.  Not too bad for a day that was supposed to be full of mud, slippery conditions, and slow times.  The team placed 3rd out of 10 teams and brought their season record to 13 wins and 7 losses.  It was disappointing to lose to Turpin and Anderson, but now that the team has seen these ECC rivals, hard work and pushing through the pain has to be done on a daily basis.  With no meet next weekend, the team can spend 2 weeks preparing for the Milford Invitational on September 16.  After a summer of renovation, the Milford track is now available on a limited basis for the team to use for practice.  How about a ton of 400 meter repeats next Friday to break it in right!  We say goodbye to VOA until districts and, as always, thank it for allowing the Milford Eagles to experience NO BAD DAYS while we were there!    

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Coach’s Recap

8/26/2017

Lakota East Classic

The 2017 Milford boys cross country team began their season on Saturday at Voice of America Park at the Lakota EAST Classic.  After a summer of solid mileage by the varsity guys, numerous hours spent in the weightroom with Coach Aaron French, and lots of new faces on the team, Coach Ackerman and first year assistant Coach Dave French were ready to see what this year had in store for the Eagles.  Unfortunately, the transportation department did not share the coaches’ enthusiasm, and arrived 20 minutes late to pick the team up.  Not to be deterred, the seniors and other varsity racers loaded into cars and off the team went to VOA.  Unfortunately again, getting into the park proved to be an adventure with a single worker trying to collect parking money from tens of thousands of runners and fans!  After a 20 minute delay to get in, Milford arrived and immediately began their race preparation.

August 26th in Cincinnati has the potential to be excruciatingly hot and nasty, but not in 2017!  It may have been the greatest weather day in the history of week 1 cross country.  Temps started in the low 50’s and rose into the 60’s by race time.  There was NO WIND and the humidity was low.  It was going to be a fast day.  As the gun sounded, 2017 was off and running and the squad from Milford was ready for action.  By the halfway point, Harris Craycraft and Clayton Virzi had moved into the top 15 places in the race with the rest of the varsity team running well.  On his home course, Lakota East’s Dustin Horter, the pre-season state championship winner, was in control and pulling away.  His winning time of 14:56 was over a minute ahead of all finishers and showed the city that he was ready for a fantastic season.  Equally impressive was league rival Kings, who packed their top 7 near the front of the field to win the meet and establish themselves as the best team in the ECC.

Harris and Clayton finished as they started, near the front of the field.  Harris set a career PR of 16:37, finishing in 6th place, while Clayton slipped just out of the top 10, but recorded a career PR of 16:47.  Milford showed that they had 2 solid runners who can be a factor in any race they enter this season (if Horter is not there!!!)  Seniors Sean Vonderhaar, Peter Kroeger, and Will Stout rounded out the top 5 for Milford, leading the Eagles to a 6th place finish out of 12 teams.  The 102 seconds from 1st finisher to 5th finisher for the Eagles will need to be cut down, but Will already cut almost 3 minutes from his time from last season, so we will have some patience with him!  League rivals Loveland and Walnut Hills finished behind Milford, so that made the day even sweeter.  In 2016, the Eagles placed 9th out of 12 teams at Lakota, so things were off to a good start.   

 As the open race wrapped up and the results were analyzed, Milford had lots to be proud of this week.  Overall, 6 runners who raced last season ran career best times this week.  It becomes more impressive when one considers that 7 Eagles ran their first 5K cross country race, so they also set career PRs for the day!  3 Eagles really took the course by storm and put themselves in contention to be a factor for the varsity this season or next.  Jared Shapiro, Matthew Broxterman, and Karl Chavez combined to cut nearly 12 minutes total off of their collective times at this meet last year.  Coach Ack is a math guy and he calculates that to be almost 4 minutes faster per man than last year.  If they keep improving at that rate, it will mean state championships and Olympic gold medals in their futures!  Man, Coach French is really making a difference.  

The Eagles will be heading back to VOA next week to race at the Xavier University meet.  If VOA was so friendly to the Eagles in week 1, who can imagination what might happen in week 2!  The Eagles seem to be embracing the NO BAD DAYS theme thus far, but stay tuned for even greater things to come.

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