MENARD 2010

Blessed is the man whose confidence is in the LORD, who trusts in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots to the stream. It does not fear when the HEAT comes; its leaves are always green. It has NO WORRIES in a time of drought and NEVER fails to bear fruit. Jeremiah 17:7-8

CBA girls cash out on another team victory this week finishing 1st in the 22nd annual Menard Invitational small school division. The guys pulled off a 4th place finish out of 16 full teams!

Today was by far the best our two teams have preformed as a unit all year. We had some major break throughs today mentally and physically which left us as coaches saying "WOW!" God has truly blessed our teams with ability. You are gaining strenth, confidence, and maturity in your racing with each week. We are right on track for the season.

In the girls race, 8th grader Hailey Hesterman easily outdistanced her competitors with an incredible new PR of 19:37 on the Hilly Fort Buhlow course in Alexandria, La. Ashlen Grantham returned to the scene today back to her old form breaking her previous PR set at the state meet last year by eight seconds! As a 7th grader, Ashlen is mature beyond her years in racing. She is calm, patient, and extremely competitive. I see her future only getting brighter! Kelsey and Nicole used their devastating closing kicks to suck up the competition again this week. I look for them to be breaking into the 21 range very soon. Their time is COMING! Shelby Dodson is a beast! She used this week to knock another minute off of her previous PR set just one week ago. (Keep doing that and you will be in the 22 range before you know it!)She safely led teammate Faith Kunkel to an all time best of 81 seconds! Faith had the highest drop of everyone this week! It is nice to see some of that hard work in practice transfer over to racing. Congrats on a big break through for Faithy! Kaila Wildes demonstrated consistency by finishing in the 25:00 range for the second week in a row. Holly dropped another five seconds off of her time this week. I look for her to be in the 25 range very soon! Hannah Ditt dealt with some frustrations today in not feeling well BUT we have plans to work past that and have her back full force by next week.
On the boys side, lead runner John Broughton got to handle adversity face to face when he was accidently directed off course. He and the four other lead runners added about 30 seconds to their time today as they had to be redirected on to course leaving them at the back of the pack. John fought his way through the crowd and ultimately managed to finish in the top 7! Though the time was not ideal this experience reminded us all of what we already know about John... He is a fighter and he is sound minded enough to make lemonade out of LEMONS! God has a plan and it is good. We believe as the bible says, you reap what you so at the proper time if you do not get tired of doing good. John, keep sowing. The time is coming to reap your harvest! Josh Hudson had an unbelievable career best breaking 18:00 minutes for the first time today. He has dropped over 3.5 minutes since he first started in 2008! Today must have been a day for break throughs as Jason Sibert outran his previous personal record today by 51 seconds!!!! I have NEVER seen him run with so much confidence and passion. We discussed earlier in the week that his time was coming soon and today it was nice to see his hard work pay off. Now that the barrier has been broken you are FREE to just run!!!! Go Seabiscuit! Tim Kunkel, Jason's usual training partner followed suit dropping another 30 seconds off of his PR last week and finishing 32nd. This finish was enought to earn a top 50 t-shirt! This comes as the first cross country shirt win of his career. Not to be out done, Jared Lupo snagged a top 50 shirt running well again this week . His nice response to passing 3 runners in black with 1200 to go helped secure our teams high placement. James Kunkel was back closer to his form this week dropping almost a minute off of the time he ran last week. Look for him to be in the 18:00's by season end. Mark Blume continues to creep downward as he ran another PR this week! Mark has had a new personal best in every race he has run this year!

Congrats to our teams. Let's keep building on this strong foundation, trusting in the Lord for our confidence and strength. Trust HIM and Trust the PLAN! HERE WE GO!

Ps. Jacob Brossette finished 17th today at the Jr. High State Championships.This placement was enough for Honorable mention All state.

*Last year the course was different due to flooding. But I do have times from the boys the year before which was the same course. Girls ran awful that day so times were not documented on our site:) Wish I would have posted so you could see your improvement too!

Boys Team finished 4th out of 16 scoring teams. 141 runners finished the race.
Results from 2010 Results from 2008* Zac was injured.
Broughton:17:20 (ran off course)-7th Chase Rolland-17:30-9th-
Josh Hudson:17:49 (PR:16 seconds)-16th Landon Roach-18:04-24th
Jason Sibert:18:24 (PR:51 seconds)-27th Dakota Rothell-18:53-40th
Tim Kunkel: 18:40 (PR: 30 seconds)-32nd Chris Norton-19:15-51st
Jared Lupo:19:01 (PR: 14 seconds)-45th Hunter Gauntlett-19:36-60th
James Kunkel:19:32-57th Jason Sibert-19:48-67th
Mark Blume: 22:34 (PR:14 seconds)-115th Josh Hudson-21:12-81st

The girls finished 1st out of 7 scoring teams and 84 runners

Hailey Hesterman: 19:36 (PR: 11 seconds)-1st
Ashlen Grantham: 21:06 (PR: 8 seconds)-13th
Kelsey Wildes:22:17-17th
Nicole Kosin:22:34-22nd
Shelby Dodson:23:17 (PR:58 seconds)-30th
Faith Kunkel:23:21 (PR:81 seconds)-32nd
Kaila Wildes:25:33-54th
Holly Dempsey:26:10 (PR:5 seconds)-58th
Hannah Ditt:-28:07-74th

For a list of full results go to : http://la.milesplit.com/meets/75284