Through grass and sticky mud, through rain and sweltering heat, Men’s Cross Country have strived to work harder and longer, daily, to drop time in their races.
From before the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year, Seaholm Men’s Cross Country had been running and training for their hard earned successes.
“[The team] has slowly progressed to have some fun accomplishments such as Division Two County Championship,” said Head coach Derek DiGiovanni.
The men’s cross country runners’ greatest accomplishments so far have been becoming Oakland County Division Two champions, as well as taking second place at the Freshman-Sophomore meet October 20.
At the Freshman-Sophomore meet, Jack Howard placed first, three points higher than the Lake Orion competitors.
“From the beginning of the season till now we have easily improved,” said senior Ryan Schloff.
Nearing the end of the season this year, only varsity runners will continue to practice for their final meets.
“The only down side to the season this year personally, is the Michigan Athletic Association not letting junior varsity teams run in any regional events, because a lot of the seniors this year were really looking forward to the regional meet but now the league meet is the very last meet for us,” said Schloff.
Senior Scott Brandonisio agreed with Schloff.
“It sucks cause they cut off my season at the end of my senior year,” said Brandonisio.
The year began with a hesitant start with the loss of two varsity runners, Michael Bender and Ted Howard.
“Our record was not that good. We lost a lot of key runners like Ted Howard and Michael Bender,” said Brandonisio.
Senior Ryan Schloff felt less affected by the changes in the team.
“Even though we have lost Ted and Mike we have recovered, and plus now we have Ted’s little brother Jack,” said Schloff.
“We’ve lost a lot of good seniors and we’ve had to step up to the line. We’ve improved a lot,” said sophomore Mark Bennett.
Among the many who stepped up to the varsity level were underclassmen including, freshmen Zack Demko and Jack Howard, and sophomores Mark Bennett and Bobby Griffin.
“It feels good [to make varsity]. I worked very hard for it,” said Bennett. “Anyone can do it with hard work.”
“It’s not bad at all [to have underclassmen on varsity]. It’s good actually, cause after all the seniors leave this year we still have experience and great runners for next year,” said Schloff.
“We have a really young team so with the proper summer training we should make some huge improvements,” said DiGiovanni.
