Athlete of the Week - Keri Bland

The Athlete of the Week for February 23rd-March 1st is Keri Bland. Keri earned her award by winning the Big East Indoor Championship for the mile in a (deep breath) school-record, conference-meet-record, personal-best, NCAA-auto-qualifying, Most-Outstanding-Track-Performer-of-the-Meet-winning time of 4:34.78. She beat Megan Metcalfe's old school record by a second and took down Kate Vermeulen's conference meet record by about 5 seconds. Ms. Bland now sits (I believe) as the fourth seeded woman for NCAA indoor nationals later in March. Keri's a North Marion graduate and coached in Morgantown by Sean Cleary. Best of luck to Keri and the rest of the Mountaineers.

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Editorializing for a moment, I'll eat my hat if that wasn't the greatest indoor weekend in the history of the state. Roll back the clock to 1999 and remember the days when almost no high school kids ran indoors. Today, we've got a girl running 11:05, three guys under 9:40 (4 under 10), a sub-4:40, two sub-2:21s, one 2:01... in one weekend. In the collegiate scene we've got a 14:50, 16:21 (Clara Grandt's new WVU record, which should get her through to nationals), a sub-18, a 2:49 and 2:47 1000m (by the same girl), a 2:50 1000m, a 9:22, a 9:40 and another sub-10 3000m, sub-8:40, sub-5 mile, a 1:55 and a 2:12... again in one weekend. (I'm not even mentioning Carrier [5th Big East Pent., 2nd Big East 60H], Belt [Big East LJ Champion] and Cotten [Big East Pent. Champion]!) There was so much action, I'm probably missing some other good marks too.

In unrelated news, I've heard that little 10-year-old Bobby Noname won the kid's mile fun run this weekend in a record 7:23. He now leads the voting for the 2009 McCoy Award.

Athlete of the Week - Sarah Campanelli

The AotW for February 15th-22nd is Sarah Campanelli of Wheeling Jesuit University. Miss Campanelli ran 2:10.27 in Akron over the weekend and now holds the #2 time in D-II for the 800m this season. Her time is also an auto time, so she will be making the trip to Houston later in March. Best of luck to her during the rest of her season, have fun in Houston.

Athlete of the Week - Clara Grandt

The AotW for February 9th-15th is Clara Grandt. Ms. Grandt wins her award via her 8th place finish at the USATF Cross Country National Championships. She covered the 8,000m course in 28:22 (that's 17:43 5K pace) and is now positioned to possibly run for the U.S. at the World Cross Country Championships. Clara is a 2005 graduate of Doddridge County High School and currently runs for the Mountaineers under Sean Cleary. In high school she was a 5:18/11:27 girl her junior year (injured for most of her senior year). If she isn't a testament to hard work, high mileage and running under Coach Cleary, no one is. Best of luck to Clara at NACAC or, more likely, Worlds.

Athlete of the Week - Michael Hardbarger

Michael Hardbarger is the AotW for February 2nd-8th. Mr. Hardbarger earns his award via his performances at the Empire Eight Conference Championships over the weekend. At the meet he won the 800m (1:56.68), won the mile (4:18.69) while breaking his own meet record and was named the men's Outstanding Athlete of the Meet in track events. Michael is a 2005 graduate of Ritchie County High School and is a senior at Rochester Institute of Technology. Congratulations to Mr. Hardbarger and keep up the hard work.

Cameron Greza breaks County Record in 1600m

Suncrest runner Cameron Greza laced up his flats and blazed to a 5:09 1600m this evening in a time trial on the track. He broke the Mon. County Middle School record of 5:13 with a gut wrenching 2:30 last half. Of course he won't get credit for this because this was not a middle school meet and it doesn't really count. But he did it, and because of this awesome run he earns the Middle School Athete of the Mid-Week!!! A title I just completely made up to have a reason to hype up what he did. Looks like Cameron has a realistic chance to pull off the rare sub-5 middle school mile this outdoor season. We'll ceratinly be keeping an eye out this spring to find out how he's progressing. Congrats to Cameron on a job well done.