What's New

September 24, 2009                                                                                                                                               Edition - No. 4

State Ranked Number One

Eagles Devour Lakers, Warriors!

Cazenovia, New York – Fresh off their number one ranking in the New York State Writer’s Poll, the J-E Eagles traveled to Cazenovia Wednesday, had to endure some foul weather, but ultimately took prey on two lesser opponents.  The Eagles routed Cazenovia 20 – 41 and Hannibal 21 – 37 to go 2 – 0 on the young season. 

     Cody Stanton got his third consecutive win of the 2009 season by jogging the 3.05 mile course in a relatively slow time of 17.30.  Despite being told that winning the race was not necessary, Stanton saw himself in familiar territory.  “I don’t know, I just feel like I should go all out in races” said Stanton, “it’s hard for me to just let someone slower beat me”.  Fellow senior Mike Marrero was just four seconds behind Stanton in second place.  “Coach didn’t want us working too hard during the race” said Marrero, “I spent most of the race trying to coax my Aim High buddy to run with me”.  Marrero was referring to Cazenovia’s Pat Dermody who finished third in 17.36.  The Eagles knew that their talent would be enough to win the race against Hannibal and Cazenovia, so instead of unleashing the normal fury into the race, they held back and won in a more comfortable pace.  “The workout that coach made us do after the race was way harder than the race itself” said J-E junior Tom Poppe, “it was nuts”.

     What was clear about the day was that the normal racing routine was interrupted, just like the quick September storm did to the race schedule.  There was a forty-five minute delay in the varsity races because of a swift-moving thunder storm that passed throughout central New York.  “We were all warmed up and ready to go” said junior Greg Bader, “then we were told that we had to go to the bus and wait and that really sucked”.  Once the storm passed, racing could resume, but this year, the girls teams would run first.  “This is the first time in my coaching career that the girls races would proceed the boys races” said J-E’s Girls Varsity Coach Schemerhorn, “it’s about time too”.  Cazenovia’s coaches decided to stagger the start of the girls and boys varsity races eight minutes apart so to minimize the rain delay.  So promptly eight minutes into the girls’ race, the boys heard the sound of the starter’s gun – on the second try, the first attempt to fire the gun resulted in a dud.  “We had about fifteen minutes to get ready to run” said a disgusted Coach Roman, “this is no way to treat your body after you’ve sat around in a cramped bus, but this is the way Cazenovia decided to administer the races – it was their show”.

     Steve Slonosky was J-E’s third man on the day, cruising around the trails of Cazenovia in sixth place in 18.33.  Tom Poppe was two places back in eighth place (18.55), and Mitch Alpha was J-E’s fifth scorer for the first time in his career by finishing in ninth place (19.06).  Normal third man Greg Bader was eleventh in a time that looked more like a tempo run (19.36).  Derrick Cheney was 14^th (20.18), Carlin Coomey was 15^th (20.38), and Robby Patterson was 17^th (20.49).

     Following the race, there was little time for celebration.  The boys munched on a few brownies, but were unable to gorge themselves as there was a post-race workout scheduled.  The workout left J-E as the only team left on the Fenner Field Complex in the wee hours before daylight turned into darkness.  “All in all, it was just another day in our quest to become state champions” said Roman, “and truthfully, I wish we didn’t have to interrupt our training to race these dual meets”.  “The only thing that matters is that we continue to get better and we try to stay healthy”. 

     In a related note, J-E modified runner Jack Gugel won his first cross country race of his budding career.  Gugel, who has trained with the number one ranked Eagles all summer, cruised around the 1.5 mile course in an easy 10.32, and won the race by over 30 seconds.  There are rumors that Gugel will in fact be joining the Varsity Eagles sometime down the road.  “We don’t know how good Jack can be” said veteran coach Bruce Derrick, “but we’ll know a lot better after Saturday’s B’ville Invitational”.

     This Saturday, J-E gets to see if their hard work will pay off as they get to run against some of the best small schools in Section III, including Holland Patent (number 2 in New York State Class C), Marcellus (defending league champ), and Tully.