Wildcats with a Spartan Invitational to remember

BOARDMAN — Diana Morris smiled as she walked through one of the parking lots at Boardman High School before summarizing Saturday's Spartan Invitational in several short words.

"It was a great day."

In a season full of great days for her talented Mogadore cross-country team, Saturday might well have been the best yet. The Wildcats finished first among Ohio teams in the Division III run at the Spartan Invitational, excelling against some of the best competition they will likely see until they return to Boardman with state berths on the line. The Mogadore girls edged McDonald by five points for the runner-up spot Saturday, trailing only Williamstown (West Virginia).

"I think this is a breakthrough for our team," said junior Katie Lane, who led the Wildcats with her seventh-place finish in 20:16.0 Saturday. "This race is so big since a lot of teams from our region are here. So I think that we were able to come out and just dominate. It was pretty awesome as a team because we're just getting so much closer this year, which is just so good for our program."

After finishing eighth at the Spartan Invitational a year ago, the Wildcats raced up the leaderboard Saturday thanks to big strides from senior Rachel Whetstone, who moved up 16 spots from a year ago (28th to 12th), and junior Mia Gaetjens, who took 19th after she didn't finish last year's race due to sickness.

"I'm just very happy," Gaetjens said. "I was mentally in it today. Like my time was very close to my all-time PR, even on a course like this, which is amazing for me."

Lane also pointed to Mogadore's fourth runner Saturday, sophomore Emma Quillen (27th, 22:45.7), as perhaps the most improved runner on the team. (Quillen cut more than two minutes off her time from last year.)

"We've all just grown so much and we're having fun," Lane said. "That's what matters the most. We're all laughing. We're all enjoying it. We all smile at each other when we're about to race. So it's a good environment."

Freshman Kai Gaetjens (36th, 23:08.0) rounded out Saturday's scoring for the Wildcats.

Per Morris and Whetstone, Mogadore's might goes well beyond places and times.

"The performance today was a lot different than last year's performance," Whetstone said. "Our training has been a lot different, and I think our coaches have been just training us to have better mentalities."

It's about a mentality that's encapsulated in a couple of the team's favorite acronyms and slogans:

Like BFA, which stands for "be flexible always."

And PMA, which stands for "positive mental attitude."

"It's our thing," Lane said. "We always say 'PMA' during a workout, during a race, everything."

And sometimes Morris simply likes to emphasize "heart and grit," something these Wildcats have shown in spades thus far.

"It's a special year, but it didn't just happen this year," Morris said. "They're great runners, but they have that extra special level that it takes because they have their head and heart, they have the heart and the grit is usually what I say, because you can teach them skills and you can do workouts, but it's about so much more when it comes to race day. You have to have that grit. They really have it and they're strong. There's unity there."

The Wildcats boys also impressed Saturday, rising nine spots from last year's Spartan Invitational (from 20th in 2021 to 11th in 2022).

That included some massive jumps in time and place.

Just like how Whetstone and Quillen made big jumps for the girls, senior Daniel Carter and junior Ryan Keren took huge steps Saturday. Keren shaved nearly four minutes (23:06.6 to 19:13.3) from his time at last year's Spartan Invitational to surge from 169th to 60th while Carter cut roughly three-and-a-half minutes (22:16.0 to 18:53.4) to rise from 140th to 46th.

Oh, and senior Alejandro Navarrete, who led Mogadore in time (18:02.2) and place (22nd) Saturday, cut over a minute and a half off of last year's performance.

"We've upped their mileage little by little as I've been helping out with the program, because they went to Walsh for the first time last year and they see boys finishing 17s and 18s and we're like we can't take you guys from running a 30-mile week to running a 60-mile week [right away], but we've gotten there," Morris said. "They're still kind of holding steady there at 50, 60 miles a week and just learning to up their game."

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Mogadore cross-country earns Spartan Invitational runner-up honors