BAOC COOL 2007–2008 Meet #7

Vasona Lake County Park

Los Gatos, CA
Saturday, January 26, 2008

Skip to the Results

Event Write-Up

By

This seventh meet of the BAOC COOL season was held on a cool clear Saturday—perfect for Orienteering. Forcasts called for rain, but the spirit of the Juniors was too strong and we didn't have a drop! Fifteen students attended this meet, including one brand new to the league.

A lot happened at Vasona—broken records, shifts in the school standings, an upset in the Elementary Boys class, and the possible toppling of a giant.

The students of the BAOC COOL smashed another record at Vasona Lake. This is for the number of students who broke the ten-minute pace mark. We had eight, count 'em, eight students break the ten-minute mark: two Elementary Girls, Julia Doubson and Johanna Karras, three Elementary Boys, David Harrison, Rory Maclean and Gavin Williams, two Middle School Boys, Daniel Kopisch and Philipp Kopisch, and one Varsity Boy, Cameron Ferguson. Congratulations to all involved! Truly outstanding work!

Berkeley Arts Magnet moved up to second place in the Elementary Schools team standings, passing recently minted second-place Laurel-Encinal. Berkeley Arts had two runners earning 162.1 points, versus Laurel-Encinal's one runner earning 73.4 points.

This puts both of those schools within striking distance of GHJDS, the once thought unstoppable juggernaut of the Elementary Schools. If Berkeley Arts has all three of their team members score at our final meet, and if Laurel-Encinal has all four of their team members score, the top three teams will all have a total of around 700 points. Each student's individual performance could make the difference between first place and third place. Will this giant of a school be toppled at Bayfront?

Now let's look at the Elementary Boys class. Almost all the veterans had first-place legs: Loren Meigs and Gavin Williams with four each, and David Harrison with two. Even rookie Davy Williams had one second-place leg. So the field was highly competitive. What made the difference were the errors, the biggest of which was missing the GO control by Loren Meigs, who, at control 5 was in first place by 18 seconds—a huge number considering that the first three places were within 39 seconds of each other at the Finish. But then Loren made a five-minute error on 6, where he went from first to last place—Wow! He then was the fastest on 7, which pulled him up to fourth place, but then failed to punch the GO control. The winner, David Harrison, made only one error, 40 seconds on control 3. David got an early slight lead at control 2. Then Rory Maclean took the lead at control 3. Loren held the lead for controls 4 and 5, then the lead fell to Gavin Williams at control 6, back to Rory at control 7, to David at control 8, to Gavin at control 9, and finally to David at the Finish. This would make for a great show on RouteGadget or WinSplits Pro.

The thing to note is that the winner, David Harrison, only had two first-place legs, and the second-place finisher, Rory Maclean, had no first-place legs, and only one 30-second error on control 7. The big upset is Gavin Williams at third place by 39 seconds, who finished in first place in five of the previous six meets and in second place at the other meet. To show you how quickly things can change, Gavin was in first place at the GO control, and dropped two places between there and the finish. Davy Williams rounded out the field with a fourth-place finish on his first course, at an amazing pace of 14:15.

In the Elementary Girls class, Julia Doubson was back and again trounced the competition, with seven first-place legs compared to three first-place legs from second-place finisher Johanna Karras. Julia had just one error of one minute on leg 9. Johanna had a clean run, the only one in the Elementary classes. Third place at 5 minutes out was Hannah Kopisch, followed by Emily Hann and Masha Konkov. Masha was in third place until her six-minute error on control 6, when she dropped to fifth place.

What is happening to Philipp Kopisch? Except at Bayfront, he has been running over a 15-minute pace. Now he's a speed demon. He won three of the ten legs, and if it hadn't been for his 75-second error on control 2, he would have be out of first by only 90 seconds. Daniel Kopisch took first place for the sixth time in a row with a blistering 6:10 pace (fastest in the league), followed by Philipp with a speedy 7:18 pace (third fastest in the league).

The boys from Silver Creek ran the JV course again, and they must be figuring things out, as their pace rocketed down from a 23- and 24-minute pace at Tilden to a 13:15 and 15:11 minute pace for Long Dam, the winner, and Jimmy Chung, respectively. Jimmy was just five and a half minutes out. Errors played a big part in this race, just like in the Elementary Boy's race. With five first-place legs, Jimmy cruised into first place by a whole minute when Long made a 3-minute error on control 9. But then Jimmy gave it right back on control 10 when he made a 3.5-minute error. Long then was the fastest on the last four legs and widened his lead to the Finish.

Cameron Ferguson again ran with no competition, but did so at a smoldering 7:06 pace, the second fastest in the league. And that's saying something for a long 4-km course with forced deviations from a straight-line path.

The parents and coaches had fun again. The first three places went to Tapio Karras, Werner Haag, and Derek Maclean, all of whom had perfectly clean runs. Also of note is Toby Ferguson, who looked as if he was trying to beat his son, Cameron. And Toby was on his way to doing just that, with five first-place legs, until he missed the GO control.

A big thanks to all who helped with the meet!

Maps: Bob Cooley
Course Setting: Jeff Lanam
Registration: Jeff Lanam, Jay Hann
Control Pickup: Daniel Kopisch, Philipp Kopisch, Toby Ferguson, Cameron Ferguson, Manfred Kopisch, Michelle Pelayo
E-punch: Jeff Lanam, Cameron Ferguson, Jay Hann

Results By Class

WinSplits (http://www.obasen.nu/winsplits/online/en/show_event.asp?id=8875)

                                       Pace
  Pl  Name                 Points     min/km       Time

Elementary Girls    (Course 1 - 1.6 km, 6 m climb, 9 controls)

   1  Julia Doubson        100.0       08:38       13:49
   2  Johanna Karras        97.2       08:53       14:13
   3  Hannah Kopisch        73.4       11:46       18:50
   4  Emily Hann            66.2       13:03       20:53
   5  Masha Konkov          55.7       15:31       24:49


Elementary Boys     (Course 1 - 1.6 km, 6 m climb, 9 controls)

   1  David Harrison       100.0       09:26       15:06
   2  Rory Maclean          96.7       09:46       15:37
   3  Gavin Williams        95.9       09:51       15:45
   4  Davy Williams         66.2       14:15       22:48

      Loren Meigs                                   MSP


Middle School Boys  (Course 2 - 2.4 km, 15 m climb, 10 controls)

   1  Daniel Kopisch       100.0       06:10       14:49
   2  Philipp Kopisch       84.5       07:18       17:32


JV Boys             (Course 3 - 2.9 km, 10 m climb, 12 controls)

   1  Long Dam             100.0       13:15       38:25
   2  Jimmy Chung           87.2       15:11       44:02


Varsity Boys        (Course 4 - 4 km, 18 m climb, 14 controls)

   1  Cameron Ferguson     100.0       07:06       28:25


Course 2 as Second Course

   1  David Harrison                               38:40
   2  Masha Konkov                                 55:41


Course 3 as Second Course

   1  Carl Williams & team                         30:10


Coaches/Parents, Course 4

   1  Tapio Karras                                 22:33
   2  Werner Haag                                  24:09
   3  Derek Maclean                                25:38
   4  Fyodor Konkov                                28:55
   5  Steve Harrison                               30:11
   6  Manfred Kopisch                              57:17
   7  Michelle Pelayo                              57:18

      Toby Ferguson                                 MSP

_______________

MSP = Mispunch (punched one or more incorrect controls)