CDO Cross Country

allsportstucson.com came out with it's all star teams. Isaiah Guevara and Mike Madigan were placed on the Boys 1st Team All-Southern Arizona. Matt Busack was placed on the All-Freshman team. Katie Bruno was place on the Girls 2nd Team All-Southern Arizona. For the Division II All-Star Teams, Isaiah Guevara and Mike Madigan made the Boys 1st Team, Daniel Gajda made the 3rd team, with Matt Knight, Spencer Miller, and Matt Busack making the 4th team. Katie Bruno made the Girls 1st Team. Great job everyone.

Last Friday, Bridgette Doucet finished 50th out of 212 women in the NCAA DI Southern Region Championships as she finished her sophomore year of cross country competing for Lipscomb University. The Lady Bisons finished 9th out of 30 teams with our Bridgette finishing as the #3 runner on her team. She covered the 6K course in 21:29.7 which, for those of us who are used to the high school distance of 5K, means she was on pace to come through the 5K mark in just under 18 minutes. Great job Bridgette. We look forward to your indoor and outdoor seasons.

Part of my coaching career has come to a close. I started coaching cross country at Oracle Middle School around 1980, I think. It's been so long and there were many nice memories. I know I'm leaving people out (please forgive me) but I remember Marina Romero, Julie Egan, Megan Sternberg, Andrea Brunson, Emily Nelson, Dorothy Kingsolver, Ronnie Flores, Blake McGrew, David Johnson, and Brock Cochran. Then, in the fall of 1993 I finally realized my dream of high school coaching when I was able to move on to Canyon del Oro high school. I looked around and thought "I've fallen into a gold mine! (Green & Gold actually!) It was everything I hoped coaching at this level would become. The wonderful memories of coaching so many championship caliber individuals and teams is something I will always remember and cherish. Again, I know I'm leaving people out (please forgive me once more) but there was David Abril (arguably the greatest boy XC runner I ever coached--little tough to argue with 4 region titles and 2 state titles to go along with a 15:31 5K), Calvin Goetz, Jonnie Shackman (now a marathon runner), Daniel Wong, Mike Howard, Casey Holoway, Mike Cramer, Tim Ronan, the 2011 and 2012 state championship teams, and so many other boys. For the girls, it's Ana Heimlic, Teri Allaire, Lindsey Misejka (also now running marathons), Taylor Stewart, Jessie Ingraham, Caitlin Vogelsburg, Karen Langdorf, Nicole Bronniman, April Steward and the greatest of them all, Bridgette Doucet (2 sectional titles, 1st and 2nd in state championship competition, 16:56 5K). There's a wall in a room in my house covered with plaques, team and individual pictures of the glory and success that is CANYON DEL ORO CROSS COUNTRY! To all of you, mentioned or not at both levels of my coaching--you were such an important part of my life! I can't thank you all enough for all the wonderful memories. I wish you all the best of everything.

We competed at the Rattler Invitational yesterday, being held, for the 1st time, at Rio Rico HS, the site of our Sectional Champs in 2 weeks. Due to the number of teams entered and for course safety, 2 varsity races each for boys and girls were held. The Dorado boys varsity finished 3rd out of 13 teams (92 runners) in their race, led by Isaiah Guevara in 3rd place. He covered the 5K course in 17:32. Mikey Madigan was 12th (18:12), and Daniel Gajda was 18th (18:51). Those 3 each earned medals for their performances. We only had 3 girls in 1 of the varsity races and Katie Bruno won a 3rd place medal (67 runners) with a time of 20:53. Complete results are on our athletic.net page.
Great job everyone.