Bowling

This Fall we have 3 bowlers on our town's high school bowling team: Hendrick, Tesfaye, and Davis.

Our knowledgeable bowling coach does a great job helping them to better their game, change-up their approach, encourage their effort, and celebrate their victories - all while keeping it so much fun. 

The boys practice once a week at our local alley (The Cactus is so supportive of the kids, welcoming them to come bowl even while under construction), and then have meets every Sunday all over northwestern Minnesota.  In the meets, teams of 5 take turns bowling frames in a best-of-5-game-match, playing 3 matches against rotating opponents.  12 lanes filled with kids, Varsity and Junior Varsity teams competing - the atmosphere is loud and fun, and there's always lots of food :) 

So far this season, Tesfaye has been impressive in his still approach to muscle the ball down the lane for nearly all strikes and spares for the Varsity team.  Hendrick has been the anchor of the JV squad, whipping his ball with crazy lightening speed and accuracy.  Davis's game has improved so much as he's adding new steps to his approach and switching to his left hand - and has been on fire recently for JV. 

It's been a lot of fun! 

The other teams have many more bowlers and much more experience - they're incredible to watch! - but I'd say our team seems to have the most fun :)

(And this mama loves traveling with my boys to the meets as official score keeper of the team!)

XC 2019 - Milaca Mega

Milaca Mega, the "world's largest single day cross country event," with it's "miles of buses," and over 6,700 registered runners, is quite a spectacle.  The event has 18 races, starting every 15 minutes, including 8 varsity races - divided by school size (boys and girls Division 1 being the largest schools, Division 2, Division 3, and Division 4).  Our Yellowjacket Class A team falls into the Division 3 category with our local high school size of less than 500 students.  

This year, our boys varsity team opted to race up two divisions to compete among the Division I schools (they were strongly favored to win in their own D3 race). 

Going into this meet, the boys wanted to challenge themselves.  The less than ideal weather and wet/muddy course conditions added to this challenge to make for a very tough race. 

The rain that had been sporadic all day, began again just as this race was started.  206 runners. 

Our boys ran well against the big teams - finishing THIRD overall! 

Two of our runners finished in the top ten.  Tesfaye was the 4th Yellowjacket runner, finishing in 39th place with a time of 17:55.9 (a race pace of 5:46/mile).  

The boys were hoping for a victory in D1, but a 3rd place finish is amazing for our D3 team - especially considering the heavy rain and a tough muddy course which made for slower than normal running. 

Great job boys!

XC 2019 - Milaca Mega (6th grade)

Yellow Jackets Cross-Country has a short season Mighty Mites program for 4th-6th grade students, a fun running introduction for younger kids.  Last year Hiwot participated - eight practices and getting the opportunity to run a 1-mile race at two meets.
This year, they upped the ante for 6th graders, allowing them participate more fully in this awesome cross-county program.  Practices 5 days a week for a full month and 3 meet races (plus team bonding outings and bus rides).  All three of our 6th graders joined in - Hiwot, Burke, and Maegli.

Their first meet was the Milaca Mega Meet - considered one of the largest single day high school cross country events in the world.  This year was its 49th year with a record number of 170 registered teams and 6,700 registered runners (all held in a town of less than 3,000 residents).  What a way to start big for our 6th graders!

Unfortunately, the day of this big race was greeted by thunderstorms and lots of rain.  The course was evacuated and the races were delayed.  After the worst passed, the planned 18 races picked back up on schedule with a fully water saturated course.  The 7th and 8th grade 2-mile races were canceled.  Our 6th graders were supposed to have run the 7th grade 2-mile race. 

With their 2-mile race canceled, the Jr. High runners joined in on the 9th grade 5K (3.1 mile) race!  The boys were up first, with Burke running his first ever race - in a field of 1,031 runners (7th, 8th, and 9th grade boys).  It was quite a sight to behold with tons of runners, lots of crazy mud puddles, and lots of slipping and sliding. 

Fifteen minutes into the boys race, the girls race began (we missed their start).  Nearly 650 7th, 8th, and 9th grade girls running on the same sloppy 5K course - including our Maegli and Hiwot! 

Kolpin and Maclaren joined me as spectators for this meet.  We cheered and yelled for our kids - seeing them several times in the first mile of the course, and then carefully making our way to the finish chute.  We weren't able to move around the course as quickly or see the runners as much as we usually do - we were already soaked, but I was hoping to avoid being mud covered. 

I was so proud of our runners!  Burke, Maegli, and Hiwot hadn't even been training for a 5K race - they had only been training for 2 weeks - and yet they all completed this 3.1 mile race, in horrible conditions to boot.  Coach had encouraged them before the race to just have fun with it - to splash in puddles and get muddy.  They were all so pleased with their accomplishment.

Way to go!!!

The Yellow Jackets had six 6th graders participating in this event.  

Hiwot finished this 5K in 27 minutes - an 8:40/mile pace
Burke and Maegli both finished in 33 minutes - 10:30/mile pace

I am so proud :)

*Coach had told the girls about a huge 6-inch deep puddle on the back course that was like a lake - he said to have fun running through it.  When Maegli was on the back course, she saw a lake and proceeded to run into it . . . she got waist deep before she realized it must not have been what he meant.  Ha!  So glad they had so much fun!