In its 36th year of honoring the nation’s best high school athletes, The Gatorade Company today announced Julia David-Smith of Issaquah High School as its 2020-21 Gatorade Washington Girls Cross Country Player of the Year. David-Smith is the first Gatorade Washington Girls Cross Country Player of the Year to be chosen from Issaquah High School. The award, which recognizes not only outstanding athletic excellence, but also high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the field, distinguishes David-Smith as Washington’s best high school girls cross country player
The 2021 season kicks off next Monday, May 3rd. We will be practicing from 3:45pm-5:45pm M-F except for meets. Usually we will be meeting in the main gym to take attendance and warm up. Be prepared to be flexible on the 3rd as the main gym may not be available.
Our meets are on Wednesdays this year and will begin at 4pm, here is our schedule:
Wednesday May 12th Home vs Mt Si
Wednesday May 19th BYE/No Meet
Wednesday May 26th Home vs Liberty
Wednesday June 2nd Away at Skyline
Thursday June 10th Away at Hazen
Final Forms is used to track the paperwork and eligibility of athletes so make sure you check your account and are ready to go next week. Also, make sure you are checking the email that is attached to your final forms account as we will be using Final Forms to communicate with you.
Have a great week, looking forward to seeing you all next Monday,
End of Year Celebration - A huge thank you to Jane Yung (Rachel’s mom), Sandy Schmidt (Andrew’s mom), and Rohini Rao (Leila’s mom) for pulling off a wonderful way to celebrate our season after the race. Thank you to Lawrie Robertson for the amazing photos from the season.
https://lawrier.smugmug.com/IssaquahHighSchool/2021-Issaquah-Cross-Country
Thank you to Gwen Robertson for trusting us to continue your legacy, for your inspiration, your guidance and the many calls and texts when I had questions. This team’s spirit is a testament to you.
Thank you to my rockstar assistant coaches, Katie Brookshire, Jackie Bykonen, and Paul Rickey, who helped me stay organized, made me laugh, and had great ideas for this season! There is no way we could have pulled this off without you. Thank you to the families for your trust, kind words, and amazing support. And finally, thank you to the athletes. Change is difficult, and a lot of change has impacted your lives. I appreciate working with all of you, your positivity, advocacy and ideas, and your team spirit. I hope you had fun!
Award: These are the awards that were announced at the celebration and we will get them to you when they arrive.
Team Captains: Julia David Smith, Aja Jensen, Alec Barran, Josh Geisser
Most Inspirational: Eliza Fuhs and Josh Delgadillo
Most Improved: Ty Lauritzen and Ellie Roberts
Varsity: Jane Harig, Giada Oliva, Brennen Rickey, Anna Jensen, Ben Konopka, Ty Lauritzen, Jonathan Liu, Ellie Roberts, Julia Ryan, Sarah Burke, Josh Delgadillo, Eliza Fuhs, Hunter Fulford, Darwin Hanson, Jerry Imai-Takemura, Hunter Scheppat, Emma Wijsman, Jula Wood, Alec Barran, Julia David Smith, Josh Geisser, Andrew Schmidt
JV: Ben Armstrong, Evan Barnes, Julianna Cullen, Rachel Dennie, Ignacio Garcia, Ethan Hanson, Ryan Lee, Eli Miller, Ilyaas Motiwalla, Zachary Prouty, Ciara Tubbs, Blake Budos, Evan Daar, Jillian Feldman, Marcus Heu-Weller, Vernika Jain, Ben LaFramboise, Claire Putnam, Ella Rosenkranz, Avni Doshi, Hayden Stowe, Tianyi (Steven) Wan, Cole Barnes, Greta Cavotta, Mathis Delombaerde, Lelia Peterson, Gavin Soleibe, Sienna Tramblay, Ashlyn Wang, Spencer Haas, Aja Jensen, Danielle Kohorn, Kathyrn McIntyre, Ethan Medeiros, Leila Rao, Sebastian Silva
What’s next? Well, keep running, doing drills, and doing core! We built an amazing base and those of you continuing on to track (I hope a lot of you!), keep up the work because it will pay off immensely. Talk to your captains if you want ideas on what to do the next 5 weeks. If you had some pains/injuries, take this time to rebuild and strengthen. The virtual XC state meet results won’t be published until the end of April, so watch for those. Some athletes are running at a community sponsored “KingCo” race at Mt. Si on April 17th - best of luck to those runners.
Seniors - It wasn’t the season you dreamed of, but I hope it was a season that brought you some joy. Alec, Julia DS, Josh G, Spencer, Aja, Rodger, Dani K, Dani M, Kathryn, Ethan M, Leila, Andrew, Cody, and Sebastian - thank you for showing up and being fantastic leaders for our team. I am confident you will all go on to amazing adventures and we look forward to hearing about them.
This isn’t goodbye, it’s just see you later,
Coach Liza
We did it! We pulled off a safe, fun, and fast season. I am immensely proud of the positive attitudes, perseverance, and dedication our athletes demonstrated these past 5 weeks. After our final race with Skyline, where both the boys and girls team won, we had a total of 37 PRs for our team. That means 55% of our team ran their fastest races ever this season, amazing. It was a privilege to be your coach this season.
Skyline Race - a course with some rolling hills, pedestrian obstacles, and an uphill finish. Our teams ran tough and we saw some great hill technique and strong finishes. In the girls’ race, Julia David Smith was 4/4 on first place finishes this season.
Darwin Hanson continued to drop time each race and was a strong 3rd place finish.
Our freshman, Jane Harig, impressed us each week with her grit and finished 5th overall.
Julia Ryan, Anna Jensen, Eliza Fuhs, and Julia Wood rounded out the rest of varsity with strong 6th, 8th. 9th and 10th place finishes.
The boys’ race exhibited the top 5 working together to finish within 43 seconds of each other. Alec Barran 2nd, Jerry Imai-Takemura 3rd, Jonathan Liu 5th, Brennen Rickey 6th, and Josh Delgadillo 7th.
Hunter Scheppat passed a Skyline runner on the HILL to finish in 9th for the team
Josh Geisser was close behind in 12th place. The ‘fun’ track workouts and teamwork once again paid off with an impressive race.
We have some exciting news about the race this weekend. We had some athletes request we investigate moving it to Lake Sammamish State Park. Well, we managed to pull that off today! It is a beloved place to race and better footing. Please let me know immediately if your athlete is not racing. This weeks races will at Lake Sammamish State Park on March 20. Meet will be versus Liberty:
Boys Race 1@ 11:00 am,
Boys Race 2@11:30 am
Girls Race @12:00, noon Athletes – check in with coaches at the UW tent by the main bathrooms 45 minutes before your race for temp checks/attestations/warm up instructions.
All boys will need to be ready to warm up and meet with coaches at 10:30am.
All girls will need to be ready to warm up and meet with coaches at 11:30am
NOTE: You will need a Discovery Pass to park there for the meet. Volunteers – we have some, but we need MORE to help ensure a safe race. Please email Coach Liza ASAP if you can help out. Remember to wear masks at all time and follow all social distancing protocols!
Also, does anyone have flagging and/or rebar to help mark the course? Friday Practice – to help us visualize and get familiar with the course, we will meet at 4 pm Friday for our workout @ Lake Sammamish State Park. If students drive, they need a DISCOVER PASS. If they are getting dropped off, please use the lot at the end of the entrance by the concessions/bathroom (NOT by the water sports rental lot).
Please join the coaching staff in celebrating this year's cross country team during Awards Night at 7PM on Tuesday, November 5th. Munch and Mingle to follow in the Commons...stay tuned!
Thanks to Karin Daar, Heidi Fuhs and Sara Mularoni for volunteering to help at the Class Meet on Wednesday. Please report at 3:30 for your assignment.See you at Lake Sammamish!
