Today was the Virginia Catholic State Championship Meet, featuring teams from 12 Catholic schools from around the state, ranging in size from large schools like Bishop O'Connell and Pope Paul VI t...

Yesterday, on a sunny and unseasonably warm afternoon, the Seton boys and girls state cross country teams competed in the 2023 VISAA Championship Meet on the hilly and challenging 5K course at Woodberry Forest School.  Here are the highlights: Seton boys finished 5th out of 16 scoring teams, their highest finish since placing 5th in 2011.   Seton girls finished 9th out of 12 scoring teams, despite being without their #2 runner who was lost to injury earlier in the week. Michael Brand and Rose Waldron both made the All-State teams with matching 17th place finishes.  They are our first All-State runners since 2015, when Greg Jackson and Geni Lucas accomplished the feat. Several runners bettered their time on the Woodberry Forest course from when we ran there in September, most notably Kieran Kelly (46 second drop), Rose Waldron (44 second drop) and Jerome Kramer (27 second drop),  Also dropping time were Patrick Gross (12 seconds) and Michael Brand (11 seconds). All of the runners gave a great effort on Thursday, some going above and beyond (you know who you are!)  and are looking forward to even greater success next year! This brings to an end a very successful cross country season.  We accomplished much this year, and will celebrate our efforts at the Cross Country end-of-season banquet. Results can be seen HERE ...

  Please read the following directions to attain tickets to the state semifinals and finals in Richmond.  Tickets must be purchased online. The admission for each day, November 9 and 10 is $10 single tickets. Children under 4 are free. Gates will open for patrons 30 minutes prior to kickoff.  City Stadium is a cashless venue and all tickets must be purchased through SeatGeek. Please see the link below for Thursday/Friday matches, and encourage your supporters to purchase in advance.  Everyone will need a ticket to enter the stadium. There are no passes accepted of any kind.    https://seatgeek.com/city-stadium-tickets/family/2023-11-09-5-30-pm/6259166 ...

On Wednesday, we went once again to Burke Lake Park for our Conference Championship Meet and what an amazing performance in our last meet with the entire team!   The *average* time drop for all our runners from the previous race at Burke Lake in October was over a minute and a half! (97.8 seconds, to be exact!)   This is a testament to all the hard work and many long runs, hill repeats and quarters that you have done.  Coach Gross estimated that you all have put in at least 350-400 miles since the start of the season!    Leading the way with biggest time drops were, for Middle School runners, John Paul with a drop of almost 6 minutes and Chiara with a drop of 4:27.  For the high schoolers, Noah (4:29), Ben (4:03) and Andrew (2:59) had the biggest drops for the boys, while Colette (2:20) and Cora (1:32) had the biggest improvements for the girls.  Among the notable improvements for the varsity runners were: Dan (2:22), Patrick K (1:34), Monica (1:21) and Max (1:12).  Also dropping by more than a minute were Lily, Penny, Nick, Gabriel and Robert.  We had an astounding 27 Personal Best times set on Wednesday! Michael Brand earned All-Conference honors, placing 10th with a team best time of 17:16.31.  Following close behind were Jerome Kramer (18th) and Dan Jackson (22nd), with all three of those under 18 minutes.  That is the first time we have had 3 runners under 18 in a VCAC conference meet.  Rose Waldron was the top Seton girl, placing 15th with a time of 21:29.70, followed by Lily Griffin and Penny Kramer.  Patrick Kay had an exceptional race, dropping a minute and a half from his previous PR to finish as the seventh Seton runner, earning the final spot on the VISAA State meet team.  Peter Russo was recognized as a top finisher for the Middle School race, finishing 12th with a time of 22:45.20.   Here is the link to the milestat results, and a summary of the statistics: https://va.milesplit.com/meets/579208-vcac-championship-2023/results ...

For the second week in a row, we ventured out west to run in the country, this time in Waynesboro VA at the Grace Christian Invitational. We ran well on a wet and hilly course. Our girls finished in a tie for third with Eastern Mennonite School, but EMS was awarded 3rd because of the sixth place runner - their sixth was one place ahead of ours.   Then our boys finished third, by a single point, to Eastern Mennonite (again!).   More on that below. We had a couple of top ten finishers: Rose Waldron (10th) for girls, Michael Brand (4th) and Patrick Gross (9th) for boys.  There were a couple of personal bests: Daniel Jackson, Max Wilson, Nick Vaughan and Colette Kramer.  In addition, three of our sevvie boys ran the middle school 2 mile, with Peter Russo coming in at 14:30.7, Greyson Shambaugh at 14:49 ( a drop of over 2 minutes from his time in September) and Robert Chiappetta at 15:14.7.   About that third place finish for our boys...  after the boys won the Generals Invitational the previous week by having our 1st through 5th runners finishing in only a 41 second span, we lost out on a second place trophy to Eastern Mennonite when they turned the tables on us by bunching their first through fifth tighter than we did: PLACE Last Team Time Score 4 Brand Seton 18:06.6 4 8 Ott Eastern Mennonite 18:22.5 7 9 Gross Seton 18:27.9 8 11 Holland Eastern Mennonite 18:48.1 10 12 Sneary Eastern Mennonite 18:53.1 11 14 Castaneda Eastern Mennonite 18:54.7 13 15 Jackson Seton 18:56.0 14 16 Kramer Seton 18:56.8 15 20 Bixler Eastern Mennonite 19:16.6 18 21 Wilson Seton 19:17.6 19           Eastern Mennonite       59  = 7 + 10 + 11 + 13 + 18         0:54 1-5 split Seton                               60 = 4  +  8  + 14 + 15 + 19         1:11 1-5 split     Results Link to Milesplit: https://va.milesplit.com/meets/562190-grace-christian-staunton-invitational-2023/results ...

After running on the mountains of the Blue Ridge for the past two Saturdays, we returned to the flatlands of Leesylvania State Park for the third and final regular season conference meet.  This meet was amazingly fast, as 21 of our runners had their personal best and another 3 had season bests.  However, our rivals also showed great improvement and we had the same team results: boys in third, girls in sixth.     For the boys, Michael Brand took a top ten finish at 9th place with a personal best time of 17:39.  Jerome Kramer was the 2nd Seton finisher, at a personal best of 18:05, followed by Max Wilson, whose 18:36 was almost a minute faster than his previous best.  Dan Jackson and Peter Konstanty were next in, both breaking the 19 minute barrier for the first time also at 18:42 and 18:48, respectively.  Rounding out the top seven were Patrick Gross, gamely fighting through an asthma attack while finishing in 18:59, and Joseph Dwane, rounding into form after missing much of the season with an ankle injury.   In the competition for the final 3 spots on the ten-man state team, Michael Brox tightened his hold on the number 8 spot with a solid 20:09, while CJ Ghering and Kieran Kelly had a photo finish, with matching personal best times 20:19.  So 11th place runner Patrick Kay (PR 20:42) has some ground to make up to try to move ahead of those two.   For the girls, Rose Waldron did a personal best of 21:50 while finishing 12th.  After Lily Griffin did a season best 22:58,   Monica Hartung and Penny Kramer finished with PR's of 23:36 and 23:58, and Mary Catherine Munsell rounded out the top five at 25:06.  Philomena Kay had a season best, and Cora Kramer, Noemi Rodriguez and Colette Kramer had personal bests, with Colette breaking 30 minutes for the first time!   Results: Link: https://va.milesplit.com/meets/567282-vcac-meet-3-2023/results ...

Here are the results from Tuesday's VCAC Meet #2 at Burke Lake:https://va.milesplit.com/meets/573055-vcac-meet-2-2023/results ...

After a cool, foggy and drizzly start, the clouds broke up and we had a glorious sunny morning for our cross country meet at the New Market Battlefield.  The New Market course is quite the challenge, as the hills are not steep, but the inclines are long and numerous.  No personal or season bests were gotten on Saturday, but all 7 runners who had run here before in 2021 bettered their time.   Our varsity girls started first with Rose Waldron beating her previous time at New Market by over two minutes.  Rose finished 15th in the small school division.  Monica Hartung also beat her prior time at New Market by over a minute, while Penny Kramer won the Kramer sister competition.   The varsity boys ran in a pretty tight pack, with our first five runners crossing the finish line within a span of only 41 seconds!   Michael Brand led the way with an 8th place finish in the small school division, while Patrick Gross, Daniel Jackson, Peter Konstanty and Jerome Kramer finished in quick succession in places 15 through 18.  That meant that our fifth scoring runner came in before most teams had their third runner in!  When the final results were calculated, our depth brought us a first place in the small school division by 4 points!  Max Wilson and Kieran Kelly also placed as our sixth and seventh runners.  Joe Dwane finally overcame his injury bug and ran his first race of the season, running under his time from 2021 at this course, while Michael Brox dropped two and a half minutes off from his 2021 New Market time!  John Karcher also came back from injury to be our tenth varsity runner for this race, but has to watch out for the competition for that spot from the JV runners...   Speaking of JV runners, Patrick Kay placed 4th in the JV boys race, small school division, with a time of 22:23, which would have put him as our 8th varsity runner.  He has displaced John in the top ten, as competition for the last couple of spots on the state team is really heating up!  Also in the running, no pun intended, is Christian Ghering, who placed 7th in the JV race, 30 seconds behind Patrick and 15 seconds ahead of John Karcher's time in the varsity race.  Gabriel Dwane placed 12th and Peter Hartung 14th in the JV race, while Luke Griffin looked strong and relaxed as he ran his first race of the season.  JV runners Joey Lynch, Andrew Ghering, Ben Ellis, Cora Kramer and Colette Kramer also conquered the New Market course, which most runners agreed was the toughest so far this year.    Here are the results: Generals Invitational Meet - Results adjusted for group placement Level Athlete Time   Place               Varsity Girls WALDRON, Rose 24:13.6 * 15     HARTUNG, Monica 26:01.6 * 30     KRAMER, Penny 27:47.4   40   JV Girls KRAMER, Cora 30:15.3   6     KRAMER, Colette 34:22.2   9               Varsity Boys BRAND, Michael 19:30.9   8     GROSS, Patrick 19:50.0 * 15     JACKSON, Daniel 20:00.4   16     KONSTANTY, Peter 20:06.9 * 17     KRAMER, Jerome 20:12.0 * 18     WILSON, Max 21:31.1   32     KELLY, Kieran 22:12.3   42     DWANE, Joseph 22:47.9 * 50     BROX, Michael 22:48.3 * 51     KARCHER, John 23:10.5   56   JV Boys KAY, Patrick 22:23.7   4     GHERING, Christian 22:54.3   7     DWANE, Gabriel 24:13.0   12     HARTUNG, Peter 25:23.4   14     GRIFFIN, Luke 25:50.4   16     LYNCH, Joey 26:37.6   18     GHERING, Andrew 26:40.9   19     ELLIS, Ben 27:47.8   21   * ran faster time than they did on this course in 2021         And here is the breakdown on how we defeated the second place team from Fort Defiance HS: Place Athlete Team Score Time 4 BLOSSER Fort Defiance 3 18:31.8 7 SCHULZ Fort Defiance 6 19:16.0 8 BRAND Seton School 7 19:30.9 15 GROSS Seton School 12 19:50.0 16 JACKSON Seton School 13 20:00.4 17 KONSTANTY Seton School 14 20:06.9 18 KRAMER Seton School 15 20:12.0 19 MITCHELL Fort Defiance 16 20:16.1 22 WRIGHT Fort Defiance 19 20:34.2 24 SOMMERFIELD Fort Defiance 20:52.9 Score differs from Place because runners from teams that did not  have enough to score (5 runners min) were excluded from the score.   Seton:   7 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 = 61 Fort Defiance: 3 + 6 + 16 + 19 + 21 = 65 Link to Results: https://va.milesplit.com/meets/561584-25th-annual-generals-xc-invitational-2023 ...