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Making their Marcus: Lovejoy XC takes early-season run at top teams in Denton
BY Kevin Hageland, khageland@starlocalnews.com
In moving up to Class 4A this season, the natural transition for Lovejoy cross country would seemingly be to slowly wade into a new field of opponents.
Never one to follow tradition, the multi-time state champions hopped right into the deep end Saturday by entering the boys and girls Class 5A fields at the Marcus I Invitational at North Lakes Park in Denton.
"Results at Marcus I were a mixed bag, with most of it being pretty darn good," said Greg Christensen, Lovejoy head coach. "On the whole we raced much faster on the boy's side in the 5A division than we did in the 4A and under last year, and the girls handled the 5K distance very well."
"Katie has once again established herself as one of the top runners in the state, this time at the 4A level," Christensen said. "She went out with an opening mile of 5:40, which was too fast but necessary to be with the lead group, and hung on with a good early-season 5K."
Lovejoy placed 13th in a field that was dominated by 5A squads.
The Lady Leopards saw a pair of opponents (third-place Highland Park and eighth-place Frisco) that may reappear come championship season, which, for the first time, will see the girls run a 5K as opposed to two miles.
"Highland Park right now is clearly the state leader for the team title as they are very deep and talented," Christensen said. "The Frisco girls were also ahead of us, but I'm very confident we'll be closing the gap on both those teams the next time we face them."
While Ruhala led the way, Lovejoy had other solid finishes with Chloe Tedder (75th, 21:11.80), Abby Tedford (80th, 21:15.30) and Lindsey Cox (82nd, 21:17.30).
"Abby and Lindsey ran just as I wanted them to and Chloe made up a lot of ground late in the race," Christensen said. "We talked about owning the third mile and all day long our runners were the ones doing the passing in the late-race stages."
Rounding out the team finish for Lovejoy was Rachel Tedder (132nd, 22:33.40), Rebecca Gleason (151st, 23:09.10) and Keirsten Lindelof (163rd, 23:42.80).
The boys placed 12th in the 5A team competition Saturday, which may have been lower than anticipated.
"We are a much better team than what these results indicate," Christensen said.
The boys were paced by Kendall Joiner (47th, 17:06.40) and also got a solid performance from Noah Landguth (93rd, 17:57.20).
"I was very pleased with Kendall's race along with Noah, who is a freshman," Christensen said. "They ran very smartly early in the race and didn't get themselves too far into oxygen debt to where they were able to move in the third mile and make up a lot of ground. The rest of the guys didn't have the races we were looking for, but still ran faster than what they did last year on the course."
Also taking the course for Lovejoy was Mike Jones (54th, 17:12.40), Evan Hartter (73rd, 17:37.50), Arjun Srivastava (133rd, 18:24.50), Joe Brands (175th, 19:11.20) and (Sam Ruhala, 189th, 19:35.50).
The Leopards displayed some depth Saturday as well, entering teams in the 4A race and coming away with ninth place on the boys side and 10th for the girls.
"All in all not a bad day," Christensen said. "We definitely have a lot of work to do to be the team we feel both groups can be by season's end, but this is a great place to build for the rest of the season."
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