When is a preview not a preview? When people don’t show up.
That’s a bit of an overstatement. But the fact of the matter is that the Great Lakes Conference cross country preview meet held Aug. 26 at Cahoon Park in Bay Village was as much about who wasn’t there as it was about who was there.
That’s not to say that there weren’t some stellar performances on the soaking-wet and mud-filled course. Michael Hanselman of host Bay won a stirring battle with Jeremy Snyder of Westlake, leading the Rockets to the boys team title with 28 points to 75 for the Demons. Fairview, running without top man Tyson Crandall, was third with 83, North Olmsted was fourth with 104, Rocky River was fifth with 182 and Elyria Catholic was sixth with 198.
In the girls race, Westlake’s Ellie Irwin put together a dominant performance right from the first step, winning by about 40 seconds over teammate Christina Ware as the Demons easily won with 18 points to 69 for runner-up Bay. Rocky River was third with 95, North Olmsted was fourth with 129, Fairview was sixth with 137 and Elyria Catholic was seventh with 187.
Nothing diminishes those performances, but Rocky River didn’t run its varsity runners, Westlake’s Sarah Peer was away on a college visit and Lakewood’s Charlie Payne didn’t participate. The Bay boys were missing Will Dunstan, their No. 1 runner on Aug. 21 when they won the Keystone Icebreaker, as he was taking the ACT.
In other words, not a lot was learned from the GLC preview meet.
The boys race was expected to be a tight battle between Hanselman, Snyder and Colin Martens of North Olmsted. Early in the proceedings, the expected group of three was well in front, but eventually it became clear that Martens was unable to stay up with the leaders.
“I can’t run in this stuff,” he said afterward. “I would catch them in the woods when it was kind of dry, but when we hit the mud, I couldn’t keep up.”
That left Hanselman and Snyder to duke it out, which is reminiscent of the 3,200-meter run in the GLC track and field championships last spring, when Snyder broke away late in the race to take the title. This time Hanselman led for much of the race, but Snyder pulled even with about 800 to go and then threw in a surge to take the lead.
“It reminded me of the GLC championship 3,200,” Hanselman said. “It was me and him on the last lap and he beat me. I said to myself, ‘That’s not going to happen again.’”
True to his word, the junior broke away from Snyder and pulled away late in the race, crossing the line in 16:30.3 to 16:36.9 for the Westlake junior. Bay junior Connor Spellman overtook Martens late in the race to take third, 15 seconds behind Snyder, and Martens was fourth in 17:06.6.
“I didn’t want to let him win, but the mud at the end, I felt like I couldn’t move,” Snyder said. “I had nothing left. There were parts of the course where you felt like you could hardly move, and you were going really slow. The mud was terrible.”
Hanselman, who said he favors conditions such as the runners faced in this race, led the Rockets to a dominant performance with the top five runners from Bay finishing in the top 10. Kieran Ripley backed up Hanselman and Spellman by taking sixth in 17:55.7, followed by Sacha Jones in eighth (18:08.4) and Spencer Grace in 10th (18:11.6). For what it’s worth, the Rockets had all underclassmen in their top five.
“Today was a fun day for the kids, being on their home course, slogging in the mud,” said coach Jack Hautz. “Inclement conditions and hard courses are great because they’re equalizers. If there’s someone you have your eyes on that you’ve never beaten before, it’s a good day to try to, as my grandpa would say, punch up a weight class. I think some kids punched up a weight class today and found out they’re better than they thought. It really couldn’t have gone much better.”
The same could be said for the Westlake girls, who scored so few points despite not having Peer. Irwin was timed in 20:38.7, followed by runner-up Ware in 21:18.3 and Maggie Hennessey in third in 21:24.9. Teammate Marisa Cutter finished fifth in 21:38.7, and Addison Navratil was seventh in 21:56.9.
Irwin said she was anticipating a battle with Brianna Chaves of Rocky River, but when she saw that the Pirates were holding out their varsity runners, she realized that the race probably was hers to win. Ironically, the senior also won a race on this same course as a freshman.
“I don’t really like the course, necessarily, but I guess this meet is just lucky for me,” she said. “But it’s fun running close to home and we practice here sometimes. I guess I’m kind of used to it. It was very wet and muddy. I felt like I was running through water. I couldn’t pick up my feet on about half the course, so I just had to look at the grass and see what spots were dry and run there.”
