The Notre Dame Girls Cross Country team continued to show the running world that they are serious about defending last year’s regional title by placing second at the Midwest Catholic Championship in Dayton, Ohio. It was a strong team effort with four girls placing in the top-20, earning the Team Runner-Up trophy in the silver (small school) division. The Midwest Catholic Championship includes Catholic School teams from five states, including Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Michigan.
This is the second year in a row that the Irish earned Team Runner-Up honors and the 4th invitational this year that the girls have finished either first or second overall, the previous invitationals being the Michigan Catholic Invite (2nd), the Oakland Grizzly HS Invite (2nd) and the Averill Distance Classic (1st). Notre Dame was led by Lexi Case (19:11) and Jenny Ohlsson (19:14) who finished first and second, respectively. Lexi Fraser (20:47) finished in 9th place and Shannon Lambrecht (21:39) in 20th place to round out the medal winners. Emma Wallace rounded out the scoring for the Irish with a time of 22:10. K.C. Kennedy(22:30) and Katie Heaman (24:21) were the final two varsity runners.
The boys team fought through adversity to grind out a 3rd place finish. Eli Seitzinger (17:21) and Nate Vogel (18:39) picked up the slack placing 4th and 20th to earn medals for the boys. Co-captain Aaron Crane (18:41), despite injury, Mitchell Guest (18:57), Adam Martin (19:01) rounded out the scoring for the Irish. Eric Gaynor (19:37), Evan Wells (19:48), Matt Wood (20:28), Matt DeAngelis (20:44) and Ben Pocious (21:13) all competed on the varsity squad. Seitzinger, Crane, Guest, Wood and Pocious all ran season bests while Vogel, Gaynor, Wells and DeAngelis all set personal records.
Next up for the Irish is the Ann Arbor Coaches Legend at Huron Meadows Metropark on Saturday, September 29.