El-Khoury and Girls Win At Harrison
On Saturday September 20th, the Turpin Cross Country teams traveled to Harrison High School to compete in the Harrison Invitational. Both teams expected the site of previous FAVC championships to be a fast, flat course. Coming back from a somewhat disappointing race at Alliance invitational, all runners looked to improve and win at the Harrison course.
The first race of the day was the Girl’s Varsity race. Battling against Michelle Thomas of Glen Este and other top runners from around Cincinnati, the girls held their own and won the race. Kaitlin Price led the team with a 6th place finish with a time of 19:27. Meg Plichta followed behind with a new personal record of 19:45 and Lauren Young finished with a 20:09. Lauren Keene ran an impressive 20:51 and freshman Victoria Clancey ran her first varsity race in 21:19. Maki Fujimoto and Alexia Yun rounded out the Spartans with respective times of 21:29 and 21:37. The Turpin girls won the race with 75 points to 2nd place Loveland’s 97.
The Turpin guys’ race started right after the girl’s race. Turpin’s junior captain, Nicholas El-Khoury, won the race overall with a time of 16:23. Recovering runner Dave Rodriguez kept on improving with a season best of 16:58. For senior Drew DiSabatino, Harrison’s course marked the first time that DiSabatino broke the 17 minute barrier, as he ran a 16:59. Joe Murray ran a new best time of 18:08, while Jon Risher and Zach Smith finished neck in neck in 18:26 and 18:28, respectively. The Spartans came in 3rd by only 4 points.
Seasonal bests were set all over the board in the boys and girls open races. Gretchen Muth won Turpin’s athlete of the meet for running a 2nd place finish in a time of 22:02.
In the open boys race, Jack Reeder and Adam Galloway made personal and seasonal bests, respectively, of 19:01 and 19:10. Derek Tucker, Brandon Bodnar, Sam Auvil, Cody Vanderpool, Alex Slagle, Cameron Young, and Patrick Nienhaus all ran seasonal/personal records for themselves.
The Spartan teams are drawing on the success of Harrison in order to prepare for the St. Xavier Invitational on Saturday, September 27th, 2008. Congratulations to all the finishers of the Harrison Invitational and good luck at St. X!