Boy’s Cross Country season opener meet recap

As school starts, and fall season is upon us, cross country is back!  Training through the summer and staying conditioned for the season, the boy’s cross country team had a chance to see what they were made of at the first big meet of the season.  This meet, “First to the Finish” held at Detweiler Park in Peoria, Illinois.  This is one of the biggest meets in the region as teams from Indiana also make an appearance here.  The race itself went well.  The frontrunner that we all heard during track season last year, Clayton Mendez ‘18, got third place by a thousandth of a second and ran a time of 14:48.  He himself could not believe it.  The second and third place runners for Whitney were Charlie Nevins ‘19 (15:08) and Rahul Mikkilineni ‘18 (16:26) respectively.  Rahul was followed by sophomore Justin Villasenor ‘20 who ran a 16:54.  After Justin came Spencer Nelson ‘19 and Keaton Schwartz ‘19 with times of 17:03 and 17:22 respectively.  The seventh runner for Whitney was capped off by Luke Somerville ‘18 with a time of 17:44.  Whitney Young also had runners in the open race that performed well.  

So far, the team is not yet at full strength as multiple runners were unable to come to the meet due to ACT,  while others are still recovering from injuries.  There is a lot to take from this meet, and a lot to look forward to in the future.  Mendez said it best when describing his race and the team as a whole: “It’s too bad I couldn’t pull it out but I’m really happy moving forward.  It’s early on in the season so for all of us to run great times and to put myself in a great position to be in the front later in the season, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Whitney Young Boys XC team before going out to dinner (Photocreds to Billy Poole-Harris)