Peer, Muccio take top spots at Medina

MEDINA » Some of the top area cross country runners took their talents to Medina for the 30th annual Milt Place XC Festival hosted by Medina High School on Oct. 9. When the dust settled, two area runners stood out amongst the group.

Sarah Peer of Westlake continued her fantastic season, winning the girls Division I race with a time of 18:21.28 and Michael Muccio of Bay took first place in the boys Division II/III race with a time of 17:08.34.

Peer won her race by 30 seconds and Muccio won his by 20 seconds.

“As we all started running the race, we realized it would be a lot harder than we expected,” Peer said about the course. “It was humid and it just wasn’t a (personal record) course like we thought it would be and although we still stuck with it and did well as a team, I think our times were a bit off.”

Peer added “mentally I felt really good, physically I felt a bit off but I just used all the people here as motivation. It’s a great course and a real cross country course for racing.”

The Westlake girls all raced well, finishing sixth out of 26 teams in the girls D1 race. According to Westlake cross country, Peer is the first ever Westlake girl to win at the Medina cross country festival and broke the old Westlake course record by 39 seconds. Peer is a sophomore.

“It was fun,” Muccio said about his race. “We were trying to pack together and fell short by two points against West Geauga but we still were able to run well and get second.”

As Muccio mentioned, Bay finished second as a team with 44 points, barely behind West Geauga with 42 points.

“It went back and forth,” Bay coach Steve Babson said about the race. “(West Geauga) is a really good team. They beat us pretty good at (the Cardinal Invitational) when Michael was out sick.”

“They worked the second half of the race a little better.”

Babson added “really happy with how our guys ran overall.”

“(Michael) is running up there with some of the top guys in the state,” Babson said. “He controlled the race today pretty comfortably.”

For both teams and runners, conference is coming up next weekend and after that, every meet becomes a little more important than the last.

“It gives us a good practice,” Peer said about pre postseason races. “A bunch of these races before the postseason we like to think of as just practice and workouts.”

Peer added “It’s a workout to help us get better.”

For Westlake, teamwork is paramount.

“We try to bring each other together as a team and do fun activities, like team breakfasts and things like that,” Peer said. “It helps bring us together and then for our races, we feel so much more comfortable talking to each other and getting ready for the race together.

“Working together more as a team instead of individually because we need to work together to get farther along in the season,” Peer added.

“Every meet is important,” Babson said. “They are all fun that is what us great about cross country. They are all fun and all important and I am trying to have everyone have fun and understand that.

“We are still a couple weeks away from districts so I don’t want to put too much pressure or expectation on them for that,” Babson said.

Bay is young and lost a lot from last season after finishing fourth in the state, and that youth can be beneficial in multiple ways.

“We want to work together to run as well as we can and try to do as well as possible now while also getting the young guys ready for the future,” Muccio said.

Only Michael and Patrick Melvin, who finished sixth with a time of 17:42.6, are seniors on the Bay top nine.

“We are wanting to win conference next week and then do the best we can and try to qualify for states and do the best we can there,” Muccio said.