Hi all.

Here's some important information for the coming week, as well as some racing news from last week.

CALL FOR PARENT VOLUNTEERS: Our home meet at Wilburton Park is this Wednesday. We need as many parent volunteers as possible. We'll be competing against Bellevue and Mount Si, so it's a relatively big meet and we want it to go as smoothly as possible. Please arrive at 2:30 at Wilburton park. We need lots of volunteers to be course monitors and keep track of results. You'll be "trained" and the tasks are easy but vital to providing a fair and safe meet. If you can only help out once this season, this is the week. We will need volunteers on October 10th but not as many.
By the way - thanks so much to the parents who have been helping with our bi-weekly practice carpools. They have gone incredibly smoothly. You are fantastic.

NIKE MEET SEPTEMBER 29TH:
On Saturday 9/29 our varsity and JV teams (approximately the top 20 plus or minus a few based on travel constraints) will have the opportunity to compete at a Nike sponsored invitational called Nike Pre-nationals at Portland Meadows. Because of the race schedule, it is not feasible to take a single bus for all athletes. So, our ability to bring JV athletes is dependent on the availability of parent drivers. (Since they won't have to pay for a bus kids will pitch in for gas etc.). Kids will need to get to their races approximately an hour before they start and the drive to Portland Meadows is a little less than three hrs. The schedule for races we are entered in is:

JV Races
10:30 a.m. Freshmen Girls
11:00 a.m. Freshmen Boys
11:25 a.m. Sophomore Girls
11:55 a.m. Sophomore Boys
12:20 p.m. Junior Girls
12:50 p.m. Junior Boys
1:15 p.m. Senior Girls
1:45 p.m. Senior Boys
Varsity Races: 3:30 p.m. Varsity Division 1 Boys and 3:50 pm Varsity Jim Danner Championship Girls

Obviously the carpool for the freshmen races is not appropriate for varsity and vice versa. So in order to make the races for the JV kids happen we'll need help from our parents. Please let Janette Plunkett (janplu@comcast.net) or myself know if you can help. We probably will need one early am carpool with a 2-3 cars for freshmen and sophomores, a later am carpool with 2-3 parents for JV juniors and seniors, and finally a late morning carpool for the varsity.
IMPORTANT REMINDER ABOUT BALANCING XC, SCHOOL AND OTHER ACTIVITIES:
So far most of you have done an awesome job making your XC practice and meet time a priority - you are to be congratulated. But now that the school year is in full swing it's important to remember that the time between 3:15 and about 5:30 has to be allocated to XC. I was a dedicated student as well as an athlete each and every season in both HS and college, so I know that it can be tough to balance everything, but it can be done. You need to be sure that you keep track of your priorities and plan in advance. You may need to give up time on the phone, on the computer, watching TV or goofing around to get everything done. But, "I have a lot of homework" and "I have a test tomorrow" are NOT acceptable excuses for missing practice or meets (I studied for final exams on the bus home from my conference championship in college). Everyone on the team has lots of homework - and it's poor team spirit if you are the only one making excuses and cutting practice.
Be proactive - if you start falling behind ask for help! Let your coaches and parents know early so that we can help you find someone to help you out.

RACING NEWS:

League Meet: Newport vs. Skyline and Sammamish
BOYS: The boys were outrun by a very strong Skyline squad, but defeated Sammamish. Our varsity guys took a low-key approach to the race to prepare for the Salt Creek Invite, but we had some great performances among the JV squad. This week Michael Hutchins and Lucas Jones were recognized by the coaching staff for their particularly strong performances. Our JV boys continue to run in a very tight pack and look to be one of the best JV squads in the league.
GIRLS: Our girls scored only 17 points (a perfect score is 15) against Skyline and Sammamish. The seven varsity girls were quite literally a "red wave" leading the race as only 1 Skyline girl broke them up. In addition, Lauren Laxton and Liza Dinh were recognized by the coaching staff as having really great races and showing big improvement.
Girls results are up at: http://www.newportxc.com/results
Boys results will be up soon.

Salt Creek Invitational:
Open Race Boys: Brian Funcke, Kevin Hoang and Kenny Tolbert got to run with Coach Turner. They ran strong races, all starting to get close to that big 19 minute mark! Kevin and Kenny also finished a SMITTY BURGER on the way home. Kenny's last bite made us a little nervous, but he had a great finishing "kick" to polish that burger off.
Open Race Girls: Maya Graue improved her time from Skyline by THREE MINUTES! Steffi Terasaki and Erin Moses ran together for much of the race and finished strong, Kristen Hecht and Tia Nichols also had great teamwork in their races, and Nicole Marshalek ran very tough. JV Race Boys: Even without their #1 runner Alex Bell, the boys JV got 4th place in the meet!!! Michael Hutchins led Steven Soroka, Josh Glantz, Ryan Steele, Kris Plunkett, Steven Strozyk and Erik Walton. Only 27 seconds separated the first 4 guys. (See complete results at: http://www.paathletics.com/salt_creek/results/070915_jvboys.htm
JV Race Girls: The JV girls placed SECOND in the meet. They were led by Lindsay Brooks who was 4th in the race. Hannah Neibulski, Taryn Blache, Danielle Seymour, Rachel Wirtz, Bryanna Woo and Kelly Toy all ran well. Hannah, Taryn, Danielle and Kelly finished 11th through 14th without anyone separating them! The JV girls average team time of 21:11 (several running well over a minute faster than last year) would have placed them in the top 10 in the VARSITY RACE. See complete results at: http://www.paathletics.com/salt_creek/results/070915_jvgirls.htm

Varsity Boys: The varsity boys placed 5th in the meet. A strong sub-16 minute performance from Neil Baunsgard led the group. Jacob Dance ran over 30 second faster than last year. Brent Magnusson, Andrew Coover and Alex Poplawski finished close together and freshman Neil Walton and sophomore Sam Staples also both ran strong sub-17 races.
Varsity Girls: The varsity girls won their team race. Natty Plunkett, Jillian Altizer and Emily Albrecht all finished in the top 10. Christine Dollard followed close behind them for a 12th place finish and Jillian Raftery, Katrina England, and Emily Meyer made sure that every Newport girl finished in the top 25 this year!!! Emily Meyer and Jillian Raftery led in the most improved category running 2:44 and 3:00 faster than last year!!!

GO NEWPORT!!!