2008 Meet Summaries

Urbana Meet:
The boys placed 2nd in the season opener at Urbana.  They ran a solid race against many strong double A teams.  Jacob Mahaffey was the individual meet champion with a time of 15:53.  Freshmen Elijah Johnson, Matthew Schaap, and John Butcher all ran in the top 7 for our team.  New runner Henry Wolf ran in the high 17's to run 4th for the team.  Junior and returning letterman Caleb Johnson ran a lifetime personal best of 18:59 in this first meet of the year. There were many other strong performances by the team, especially by the new runners to the team.  Urbana results.

Charleston Invitational:
The boys placed 1st in the Charleston Inviational for the 3rd year in a row.  The team beat 11 other schools for this title.  Everyone on our team ran with great intensity and ran season bests.  Kurt Bucker, Alex Charter & Joe Nusbaum earned a medal in the open race.  John Prillaman, Henry Wolf, Matthew Schaap, Elijah Johnson, & John Butcher earned a medal in the Varisity race.  Mayand Vakil improved 2:36 from his previous best time.  Evan Forbes improved 1:51.  Tray Kipp improved 1:39. Dale Donoho improved 1:27.  Charleston results.

Pontiac Meet:
The boys placed 1st in the Pontiac quad meet.  Despite a rainy day the boys rose to the occassion and placed 1st through 7th as individuals.  Jacob Mahaffey was the meet champion.  Dan Lewis improved more than anyone on the team with a 1 minute and 36 second season PR.  Brian Statler, Alex Williams, Zach Rausch, and Lucas Prather also ran season personal bests.  This is one of the few times in a decade that our team earned a perfect score by placing 1st through 5th places.  The team ran with focus and appears to have an increased team spirit this week.  Pontiac results.

Springfield Invitational:
The boys squad was split among 3 races.  Dale Donoho, Alex Charter and Zach Rausch represented our team in the Varsity top 7 for the first time in their career.  They represented us well as we placed 9th as a team along with teammates Caleb Johnson, Zach Rausch, John Prillaman, and Jacob Mahaffey.  John Prillaman and Jacob Mahaffey placed 17th and 3rd respectiviely to earn a medal.  Jacob's 3rd place finish is the highest finish at the Springfield meet in our history of going to this meet.  Our freshman team also scored a school record high finish as they ran to a 1st place team finish.  Elijah Johnson, Matthew Schaap, John Butcher, Lucas Prather & Dan Lewis ran 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 52nd respectivily to win the meet.  Our top four freshman earned a medal by placing in the top 15.
Springfield results.
Eureka Fresh/Soph Invitational:
This meet was cancelled due to flooding.

Prairie Central Meet:
The boys placed 2nd in this triangular meet.  The course is believed to be short even though Prairie Central claims it was measured to be accurate on race day.  The team had one of its best races as a team yet.  They showed great strength by working together to run in packs.  They appeared to have made gains on U-High of Normal since our first race against them.  The race official made several comments to our parents and coaches at how impressed he was that our boys did a great job cheering on both their own teammates and the opposing teammates throughout the race and after the race.  Meet champion was Jacob Mahaffey with a time in the low 15s.  Prairie Central results.

Peoria Notre Dame Invitational:
The Varsity boys ran solid and placed 32nd out of 55 full teams.  Our FS team placed 13th out of 37 teams.  Jacob Mahaffey earned a medal in the Varsity race by placing 20th.  This is the highest team finish and time in over 7 years.  Matthew Schaap led the FS team by running in the 16's.  Matthew Schaap, Elijah Johnson, Lucas Prather, andJohnathon Butcher all earned a spot in our ten fastest freshman list at the Notre Dame meet since 2001.  John Prillaman worked his way onto the top ten sophomore list.  Henry Wolf earned his way onto the top junior list.  Jacob Mahaffey and Austin Beck earned their way onto the top ten senior list.  Evan Forbes, Dan Lewis, Matthew Schaap, Alex Williams, Dale Donoho and Mayand Vakil all ran lifetime personal bests. Notre Dame Results.
  
East Peoria Invitational:
The boys placed 5th in this premier invitational with 24 teams represented.  This was our highest team finish in the 4 years we have competed in this meet.  Our highest previous place as a team was 9th.  Jacob Mahaffey led our team by placing 3rd overall.  Jacob Mahaffey, Henry Wolf, Zach Rausch, Caleb Johnson, John Prillaman, Evan Forbes, Elijah Johnson, Lucas Prather, Matthew Schaap, and John Butcher earned their way onto our top 10 fastest freshman-senior lists for this invitational by running exceptional times.  See our fastest times as East Peoria webpage.  The team ran our of their smartest races ever by utilizing their teammates.  They ran in small packs to push each other to season best times.  East Peoria's course is .05 short of 3 miles which roughly translates into a 15-20 second time reduction.  However, most coaches would say this short course isn't one that their runners run personal bests on.  Evan Forbes, Dan Lewis and Alex Williams cut off 51 seconds, 1:10 and 1:13 from their personal bests which shows quite an improvement.  The team is showing great team spirit and running with great intensity.  East Peoria Results.

Olympia  Fresh/Soph and Open Invitational:
The boys placed 1st in Fresh/Soph race for the 1st time in school history (since 2003).  The boys also placed 1st in the open race for only the 2nd time.  Austin Beck was meeet champion in the open race, followed by teammate Zach Rausch.  The boys came mentally prepared and ran great races.  FS runners, John Prillaman 2nd, Matthew Schaap 3rd, Lucas Prather 4th, John Butcher 5th, and Evan Forbes 27th all earned a medal by placing in the top 30.  John Butcher, Evan Forbes, & Dan Lewis all ran 3 mile lifetime personal bests in the FS race.  Open runners, Austin Beck 1st, Zach Rausch 2nd, Kurt Bucker 4th, Caleb Johnson 5th, Alex Williams 7th, Dale Donoho 16th, Joe Nusbaum 18th, Mayand Vakil 20th, & Tray Kipp 25th all earned a medal by placing in the top 30.  Zach Rausch, Caleb Johnson, Alex Williams, Mayand Vakil, and Tray Kipp all ran 3 mile personal bests.  12 runners ran fast enough to make it onto our fastest top 10 lists for the Olympia Invitational: Seniors-Austin Beck and Kurt Bucker, Juniors-Zach Rausch, Caleb Johnson, Alex Williams, Dale Donoho, and Joe Nusbaum, Sophomores-John Prillaman and Evan Forbes, Freshmen-Matthew Schaap, Lucas Prather, and John Butcher.  Olympia results.

U-High Invitational:
The boys placed 2nd out of 17 teams represented.  The boys all had solid races.  Jacob Mahaffey was runner up with a time of 15:34.  Seniors-Jacob Mahaffey, Austin Beck and Kurt Bucker, Juniors-Henry Wolf and Zach Rausch, Sophomores- John Prillaman and Evan Forbes, and Freshman-Lucas Prather, John Butcher and Matthew Schaap all earned their way onto our fastest top 10 lists for the U-High Invitational.  Jacob Mahaffey, Kurt Bucker, Joe Nusbaum, Mayand Vakil, Alex Williams, Henry Wolf, John Prillaman, Evan Forbes, John Butcher, Dan Lewis, and Lucas Prather all ran 3 mile season bests.  Alex Williams and Evan Forbes ran great races by placing in the top 10 in the open race.  Alex Williams led the majority of the race.  U-High results.

Metamora Invitational:
The boys placed 6th out of 26 teams represented.  This was our first time going to this high powered invitational and our team did well.  The boys legs were tired from a tough week of practice, but faired well as they ran competitively on tired legs.  Jacob Mahaffey 7th, John Prillaman 33rd and Henry Wolf 40th all medaled.  Kurt Bucker, Mayand Vakil, Henry Wolf and John Prillaman all ran season bests.  Mayand Vakil and Joe Nusbaum earned their varsity letter at this meet.  Metamora Invitational.

Conference:
The boys placed 2nd out of 8 teams.  This ties the highest team finish in the history of the cornbelt conference meet since 1986.  U-High, BCC, and Olympia are all state ranked.  Jacob Mahaffey earned all-conference honors by placing 3rd.  This is the highest individual finish for a MS boys runner in the past 9 years.  Although the course was long, we had 5 runners in the 15's and 16's.  Jacob Mahaffey, John Prillaman, Lucas Prather, Henry Wolf, and Matthew Schaap.  Caleb Johnson, Evan Forbes, and Tray Kipp ran lifetime personal bests on the course.  Conference Results.

Regional:
The boys placed 2nd out of 7 teams.  The boys outran Bloomington who is ranked 11th in State this week and was beat by Normal U-High who is ranked 2nd.  Jacob Mahaffey and John Prillaman earned medals by placing 2nd and 5th.  John Prillaman, Henry Wolf, ,Lucas Prather, and John Butcher all ran lifetime personal bests to help push the team to a higher place.  All seven runners ran a strong mental and physical race at Regional.  The boys are starting to back off in workouts which should give them something back in their legs for the Sectional meet. Regional Results.

Sectional:
The boys placed 7th out of 20 teams.  This is the highest place that our team has achieved in the 12 years our team has been double A.  Jacob Mahaffey placed 6th which is the highest place an individual on our team has placed in 8 years.  Jacob advanced to State which will be run this coming weekend at Peoria.  Jacob is the 4th individual to qualify for state in the past 12 years.  Jacob Mahaffey and John Prillaman ran in the 15's.  We have only had 5 runners in the past 8 years to do this.  Lucas Prather ran a season best of 16:42.  Henry Wolf, Austin Beck and John Butcher also ran in the 16's.  Matthew Schaap ran a solid race at 17:10.  Sectional Results.

State:
The team's spirit and loyalty really was revealed as they came out to support Jacob Mahaffey as he ran in the state meet.  His teammates warmed up with him and spread out through the course to cheer him on.  Even some of our runners' parents and the girls' team showed a great amount of support by coming up and cheering on Jacob.  Jacob's family has been wearing sweatshirts they made that say Jake's fan club on them to all of his meets.  His parents, two older sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles have traveled throughout the state this year to support Jacob at his meets.  Jacob was extremely competitive and ran both a smart and gutsy race.  He went out with the leaders to avoid getting caught up in the traffic of the mass runners behind him.  He gave it his best shot to run with the leaders and did for most of the race.  The announcers named off the top 7 runners and Jacob was in that group.  Jacob hit a wall with 1/2 mile to go.  His teammates were at that point waving our team's flag and yelling words of encouragement to Jacob.  Jacob's legs appeared to be full of lactic acid and at a near walk pace.  He realized he was in 26th and that the top 25 are considered all-state runners.  Jacob dug down as his teammates ran by to cheer.  Jacob passed the 1 runner that he needed to pass in the final stretch to earn the 25th spot and all-state status.  Jacob is the first runner since 1997 when our team was turned double A to earn all-state status.  His teammates and the girls team cheered him on at the victory stand as he earned his state placing medal.  They carried him off on their shoulders.  In a team meeting after we returned home, humble Jacob created his teammates with his success for all their support in the off-season training, the season training, and coming up to support him at the State meet.  MS State Qualifiers list.  
 
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