Mocorunning.com conducted an email coaches poll to determine who your coaches believed the favorites are. 16 out of 18 coaches selected Andrew Palmer of Whitman to be the next county champion. 2 coaches selected Jackson Reams of Sherwood to win. 17 coaches predicted the winning finishing time. The average response was 15:28.9. The fastest predicted time was 15:15 and the slowest was 16:00.
What the Fans Thought
MoCoRunning.com conducted an open online poll between October 13 and October 18 for anyone to rank their top ten boys in the county. 75 valid boys individual votes were collected and tabulated to form the ranking you see below.
The sophomore has not backed down from high preseason expectations. Zach has been in the top three on his team all season with most of his times in the low 17's. At the Carlisle Invitational, he ran a personal best time of 16:22.43 for 5k.
Ishan has had an up and down season. In some races, he has shown that he can run with O'Leary and Willett every step of a 5k race. In other races, including most recently at the Georgetown Prep Invitational, he has fallen to fifth on his team. He has a season best 5k time of 16:42.60 on a difficult course at the AJ Everhart Invitational.
Nicolas had fans worried when he missed half of his team's races this season due to tendonitis. He returned for a dual meet against Springbrook and then a top 15 finish at the Glory Days Invitational in 16:18. He finished 16th at the Georgetown Prep Invitational where he was the only MCPS athlete to break up WJ's top 5.
Anyone who selected "other" in the preseason poll may have known about Poolesville's secret weapon, Eric Holmstead. Eric dropped a 16:30 in a road race at Kentlands in August followed by a 16:31 in the first cross country invitational at Brunswick. He hasn't finished worse than fourth in any race yet this year.
Excluding the Manhattan Invitational, Thomas has finished in the top ten in all six invitationals he has run in this year. He scored victories at the Mountain Run and Tidewater Classic. At Tidewater, he ran 16:13 for a full 5k.
Chris has put together his best season yet this year as a junior. At the Paul Short Run, he ran a personal best of 16:17, 23 seconds faster than he ran on the same course the year before. He most recently ran 15:59 on the 3.05 mile course at Glory Days to finish 7th.
Aside from a single poor race at Octoberfest, Alex has been outstanding this year with victories at the Howard County Invitational and the AJ Everhart Invitational (16:28). He had possibly his best showings at the Manhattan Invitational (13:09) and Georgetown Prep Classic (4th). He is the only Montgomery County athlete to beat Jackson Reams head to head so far.
A race is often a toss-up between Sean O'Leary and Alex Willett, but across the entire season, Sean has been more consistent. He has a faster season best time of 16:22 from Octoberfest.
Jackson has been the surprise of the season in Montgomery County so far. He has been in the mid to low 16's for almost every 5k he has run this season and ran 12:56.04 on the 2.5 mile course at the Manhattan Invitational, a time faster than Andrew Palmer ran in a separate race. He has been averaging about a minute faster this year than he ran on identical courses last year. He ran 17:13.60 at the Montgomery County Championship Meet last year.
Andrew has kept his racing to a minimum this year, and it may have hurt his race readiness at Manhattan where he only clocked a time of 12:59.90. After the race, he offered, "I just am not race sharp yet, which isn't a bad thing if I am thinking long term." He does own the county's fastest 5k time this season with a clocking of 15:40 at the Great American XC Festival. After running 15:27.69 at last year's county championship meet, he would not comment on whether he was going after Solomon Haile's course record of 15:11.62, but he did say he wants to run his best 5k time (15:16). On his confidence, he said, "My workouts last year dont even compare to what they are now."
Tie Breaker: The tie breaker question asked the voters to predict the winning boys time at the county championship meet regardless of who they thought would win. The average answer for the boys was 15:36 (coincidentally the same average time predicted by fans in the preseason).
Name
Comments
J-Dawg
Sunday, October 25, 2009 05:55:38 PM
Eric Holmstead. He came out of no where this season. What a beast. Love that kid.
