Amboy Columbus Day Invitational on Monday

Amboy Columbus Day Invitational

Monday, October 13, 2014

at Shady Oaks Country Club

Solid Races All Around as Ladies 14th Place Finish In Deep Amboy Field

Amboy has been called a preview of the Class 1A (or in the old days, just the "A") state meet in many years, and this year was one of the deepest years ever at Amboy on the girls side. Many of the top-ranked girls teams were there and they locked horns and did battle. Although we were without Emilia today, all of the rest of the girls stepped up in the 2.9 mile varsity race.

Imogene Asa once again led the way for the ladies, posting a 59th place finish to start the scoring for the Sentinels. Peyton Nash would soon follow in 71st place, then Lisa Niemiec came home in 80th place. Brittany Eiermann and Lily Arndt finished just seconds apart in 100th and 103rd places, respectively, while Hannah Abbatacola finished 129th. Halle Nash, who moved up to varsity to fill in Emilia's spot at the last minute, ran an outstanding race to finish just two seconds and two places behind Hannah in 131st.

The scoring for our ladies was 53-62-71-90-92-(117)-(119) for 368 points and very respectable 14th place finish in a deep field of 33 teams.

All of our young ladies ran great races, a good sign of things to come for this weekend at Conference (I'm writing this after Conference, apologies for the long delay -- it's been a crazy week!)

Men Just Miss Out on Medals, But Post Strong 7th Place Finish in Deep Amboy Field

The boys race at Amboy this year was more top-heavy than the girls' in terms of depth (state powers and potential state trophy or championship challengers such as Monticello, Elmwood, and others duked it out for the trophies. That is what makes the boys' 7th place finish -- even as we were still without Jasper -- that much better.

Nick Dea and Anthony Alessi just missed out on earning medals (top 25 earn medals, which is hard to do in such a deep field like Amboy) by finishing 27th and 29th respectively. Mitch Perrotta, still recovering from illness the previous week, ran a very solid race to finish 47th. Tony Cordero ran another solid race to finish as our fourth man in 83rd. Jake Juska ran a simply outstanding race to finish as our fifth man in 111th place, and Sam Asa followed right behind Jake to finish 112th. Ryan Pleva ran his best race of the year to round out the scoring by finishing 129th.

The boys scored 21-22-36-62-83-(84)-(100) to finish in a very strong 7th place in a very tough field of 24 teams.

Open Runners Run Very Well in 2 Mile Race

Amboy is perhaps our most unique meet that we go to in that the Open race at this meet is two miles instead of having the runners run the same distance as the other races. In this race, boys and girls run together, but the standings are separated. No matter the distance, our athletes were ready to go in the open race. Jacob Nader ran an outstanding race to finish 11th overall in the boys race and just miss out on a medal. Amanda Yates finished 52nd, Victoria Thomas 77th, and Michelle Gorman 80th. All three ladies ran very well in their open races.