Warriors Finish Season at WHAC Championships
ROCHESTER, MI --
The Men's and Women's Cross Country teams traveled to Allendale High School for the WHAC Championships on November 9. The meet was moved to the Allendale High School course afte the Riverside Park course was ruled unfit to hold the races. The course had flooded which made the decision to move the race to Allendale easy.
The Women would run first and run their normal distance of 5k. The Women would have five runners compete. The Women would finish ninth as a team with 257 points, just five back of Lawrence Tech. The women would be led by Allyson Slone (Junior / Macomb, MI) who was one tenth of a second off of her personal record with a time of 19:18, which was good enough for 20th place. Delanie Nicklas (Freshman / Metamora, MI ) would be the second Warrior to cross the line. She would finish with a time of 21:58, which is her personal best by 14 seconds and a 74th place overall finish. The next Warrior was Amanda Lebel ( Sophomore / Rochester Hills, MI) finishing 90th in a time of 23:59. Isabelle Dietz (Senior / Bloomfield Hills, MI) was less than two seconds off of her personal record with a time of 25:08.3 and a 98th place finish in her last cross country race. Lauren Hope ( Junior / Rochester, MI) would round out the scoring for the Warriors with a 117th place finish in a time of 36:23.
The Men's team would run after the Women's team race was complete. The Men would only have three runners compete so they could not register a team score. The Men would be led by Dominic Santina (Senior / Boyne City, MI) who would run his personal record by 4 seconds with a time of 27:26 and 34th place finish in his last race for the Warriors. Cameron Bitzer (Senior/ Monroe, MI) finished 64th with a time of 29:00, it was his final cross country race as well. Josh Phipps would round out the day for the Men with a 102nd place finish with a time of 37:46.
After the race was over the Warriors were honored at WHAC award ceremony. The Warriors would have two athletes honored on the All Academic Team, which were Dietz and Santina. The big honor of the night went to Bitzer and Nicklas as they were honored as the Champions of Character Athletes for Rochester. The Champions of Character award is awarded to athletes that demonstrate five values of an athlete. Those five values are: integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship and servant leadership.
The season came to an end with WHAC meet. The team will take a couple weeks off before they start to prepare for the indoor season. The track and field team will compete December 6th at Saginaw Valley State University in the SVSU Holiday Open. The rest of the track team will compete January 17th at Saginaw Valley State University in the Doug Hansen Open.