The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Area teams thankful for completion of full season
At the beginning of a Westlake cross country practice in June, Westlake girls coach Travis Haselwerdt found himself engaging in a conversation with middle school coach Dennis Sullivan. As both teams warmed up in front of the coaching duo, Haselwerdt made a prediction.
“I think there’s a zero percent chance that we’ll be ending our season in October at the conference meet,” he said to Sullivan.
In a way, Haselwerdt was right. While the Demons season didn’t end at the conference meet, it just wasn’t for the reason he expected. Instead of the season being canceled to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Demons completed — and dominated — a full season before tearing through the postseason to earn a berth at last weekend’s state meet.
Westlake came in 13th as a team in the Division I girls race behind a 21st place finish from freshman Sarah Peer in 18 minutes, 46 seconds.
“In a backwards way I kind of nailed it,” Haselwerdt said of his prediction. “It was one of those things where we were hoping for the best but also prepared in case everything shut down.”
After going through a fall that featured stops, starts and uncertainty, area cross country programs finished their season at last week
end’s aforementioned state meet at Fortress Obertz, a literal victory lap for a season that almost never happened.
As Westlake’s track and field coach, Hasewlerdt had a first-hand view of what the April’s spring sports cancellation did to his athletes. So, even as the nocontact order was lifted and the Demons began to practice again, he still wasn’t optimistic there would be a season.
“Practices were bittersweet because kids would be doing things that were ridiculous when it came to workouts but in the back of your mind you were wondering if they’d get the chance to compete,” he said. “I knew on paper that we had some really talented kids and that, if we got the opportunity, we’d be able to do some things that hadn’t been done in a long time.”
Much like Haselwerdt, Amherst boys cross country
coach Rob Glatz — who also serves as the Comets’ boys track and field coach — saw the spring season ripped away from his team. He and his team used that feeling as motivation when preparing for the cross country season.
“I’m incredibly proud of these kids for being able to maintain their focus for 33 weeks with everything going on in our world right now,” Glatz said. “It’s a true testament to the leadership of our upperclassman along with the camaraderie they built with our underclassman.”
Amherst freshman phenoms Ty Perez and Luke Bowlsby ran in the state meet, with Perez coming in 58th in 16 minutes, 29 seconds while Bowlsby was in 74th with a time of 16:39.
“It was so special and rewarding because of how hard these boys worked,” Glatz said. “It was great they were able to get there as freshmen and get the lay of the land and get a feel for the environment. It was quite a different environment from the tri-meets we were at this year.”
While Columbia’s cross country program only had junior Madeline Finton in the state tournament, coach Adam Bailey is still happy with the Raiders’ performance. In addition to Finton’s state meet performance — 29th place in 19:36 — Columbia’s girls team won the first conference title in school history and made it to the regional meet as a team.
“I’m really happy we were able to have the season especially now with the cases exploding,” Bailey said. “I’m really thankful we were able to get it in with no incidents. I thought the state and all the schools that did the events did a great job in allowing the kids to compete.”
After finding success this season, Bailey is looking forward to being able to coach his team next fall when the novel coronavirus pandemic is (hopefully) in the rearview mirror.
“I expect both of our teams to improve,” he said. “Our girls only graduated one and we have three really good junior high girls coming up so our girls team is going to be good next year.
“Our boys team graduated two of our top five but we have some promising runners coming up there as well. I think the experience of having to fight through adversity will really help these kids next season.”