Updates - 2 Mile Time Trial Cancelled, NCS Field Trip, State Meet Lodging Info

• The two mile time trial is cancelled for November 14th
• (Varsity Only) We decided we are going to take a "field trip" to check-out the NCS course at Hayward High School around 3PM on November 14. Leaving MCHS at 1:30PM then drive to Hayward High School, then stop in the city for a early dinner.
• (Varsity Only) For the State meet, we are staying at the Fresno Airport Holiday Inn on November 27th. Address: 5090 E Clinton WayFresno, CA 93727 (559) 252-3611 - Parents: We have rooms for the team, but you will need to reserve your own room if you are coming to spectate. You can call the Holiday Inn reservations line at 1 800 HOLIDAY (800 4654329) -If you cannot get a room, please let Greg know since he has a few"extra" rooms reserved in his name.

Up Next - North Bay League Championships

Our next competition, the North Bay League Championships, will be held on Friday, November 6 at Spring Lake.  For most of our team, this will be their final cross country competition of the season, and for a few, the last cross country meet of their high school careers.

What's at stake this coming Friday?

• 4 races to determine league Boys JV, Girls JV, Varsity Boys, and Varsity Girls champions.  All 8 schools in the North Bay league will be participating in the meet.
• The Pumas have a great tradition of "wow" performances at this competition - we take tremendous pride in delivering our very best efforts at league finals.  We would like to join many Carrillo teams from previous years that were able to sweep first place team awards in each of the 4 contests.
• Varsity Boys: will face a very tough challenge from Santa Rosa High.  The Pumas narrowly won when these schools faced off in their regular season league meet.  The Puma boys seek to improve on their 12th all-time team time set last week against Montgomery.  Santa Rosa's team ran the 13th fastest team time just two weeks ago - so these teams are very evenly matched.
• Varsity Girls: will seek to win their 7th consecutive NBL title and extend their league winning streak to 98 consecutive contests.  They will try to improve on their 15th all-time ranking as a team at Spring Lake.
• JV Boys: This will be the final competition of the year for our JV teams and a final chance to run best times at the Spring Lake course.  Conditions permitting, our goal is to see 9 guys run below 18:00 - including 2 guys under 17:00.  The team time goal is to beat the all-time best JV time of 1:27:22 (2005).  We will challenge the JV boys to be the 4th fastest boys team time on the day - meaning that they will seek run faster than all but the Varsity teams of 2 other schools in league.
• JV Girls: If conditions permit, we think its possible to see 7 girls finish under 22:00 - including 5 under 21:00, and perhaps one under 20:00.  The team time goal is to beat the all-time JV best of 1:45:27. Similar to the JV Boys, we will challenge this group to post the 4th fastest team time on the day (including varsity results).

We encourage all parents and friends to make a special effort to come out and support the team this week!

Washington Women Repeat as Pac-10 XC Champs, Stanford Men Unseat Oregon

Next week is North Bay League Championship week for the Pumas!  It's also the beginning of championship season in college running. Follow this link if you are interested in seeing what championship level Cross Country at the NCAA Div I level looks like (has 2008 race highlights and 2009 results).

Washington women held off Oregon to win the women's title on Friday, October 30th, while Stanford unseated Oregon as the Pac-10 men's championship team.

Meet Results - NBL Meet #4 vs Montgomery, CN, Ursuline

Hey Pumas! How do you feel? You ought to feel GOOD - oh so good.  Simply an awesome set of performances today - and great outcomes for every race.  Each team - Boys Varsity and JV and Girls Varsity and JV - completed undefeated NBL dual meet seasons today.


Follow this link to see the complete meet results.


For the Varsity Girls, today marked their 90th and 91st consecutive NBL wins.  Last time the Puma girls lost in NBL competition was 2002! Their cumulative team time today of 95:38 was the 15th fastest ever team in the 22 year history of the Spring Lake Course,  and the 7th fastest Puma girls team.  Also, in case you missed it, Lauren Kraus ran 18:57 - the 10th fastest time ever for a freshman girl - (not too shabby).  Only Jenny Aldridge and Amy Robinson ever ran faster for the Pumas as freshman. 

As impressive as the Girls did, the Boys did even better.  Their team time of 80:51 was the 12th fastest ever team and the 3rd best Carrillo team time in the history of the Spring Lake Course.  Gus Greenstein became the 30th fastest all-time and the Pumas 5th fastest boy ever with his 15:41. The Varsity Boys are now 88-3 vs NBL competition over the past 7 seasons.


At this point, I know what you are thinking.  "That's all very interesting, but what about socks?"  I was getting to that.  Today we had 29 runners earn socks by running PRs.  Great job everyone!  Following is the list of PRs - led by Desiree Purugannan's 5:06 improvement (say what?)  since her previous Spring Lake run earlier this season!  While Desiree's improvement was impressive, the coaches noticed all of our less experienced runners were now fully engaged in real cross country racing instead of "just finishing."  Congratulations to all of you - you have graduated to the "next level" of your competitive careers.

Name	Time on 10/28	Previous PR	Time Improved	% Improved
Purugganan, Desiree	24:49	29:55	5:06	17.0%
Dedrick, Jamaeca	22:56	25:30	2:34	10.1%
Gunderson, Ashley	21:49	23:52	2:03	8.6%
Birkland, Kelly	21:25	23:12	1:47	7.7%
Connors, Chris	17:56	19:17	1:21	7.0%
Thigpen, Brynna	19:31	20:52	1:21	6.5%
Halverson, Jessica	21:16	22:16	1:00	4.5%
Kraus, Lauren	18:57	19:40	0:43	3.6%
Nijjar, Harsimmer	19:19	19:59	0:40	3.3%
Lynch, Austin	21:06	21:46	0:40	3.1%
Dearden, Daniel	19:42	20:19	0:37	3.0%
Thiele, Heidi	19:24	20:00	0:36	3.0%
Luft, Harrison	17:01	17:32	0:31	2.9%
Horner, Emilio	17:09	17:38	0:29	2.7%
Matoes, Brett	20:37	21:05	0:28	2.2%
Brady, Connor	19:38	20:02	0:24	2.0%
Lucia, Jesse	16:40	17:00	0:20	2.0%
Murray, Gus	17:57	18:18	0:21	1.9%
Greenstein, Gus	15:41	15:52	0:11	1.2%
Christensen, Erik	18:11	18:23	0:12	1.1%
Graham, Taylor	19:28	19:40	0:12	1.0%
Ramirez, James	16:09	16:18	0:09	0.9%
Gibson, Colin	16:17	16:26	0:09	0.9%
Kerr, Carolyn	22:58	23:10	0:12	0.9%
Petrie, Gretel	20:11	20:21	0:10	0.8%
Henderson, Martyn	17:06	17:13	0:07	0.7%
Lowder, Dalin	19:58	20:06	0:08	0.7%
Ramos, Sophia	21:26	21:33	0:07	0.5%
Hauptman, Daniel	16:04	16:09	0:05	0.5%

NBL Standings after Third Round

BOYS

5 - 0 Maria Carrillo
5 - 1 Santa Rosa
3 - 2 Piner
3 - 2 Montgomery
2 - 3 Rancho
2 - 3 Ukiah
0 - 4 Cardinal Newman
0 - 5 Elsie Allen

GIRLS
5 - 0 Maria Carrillo (89 consecutive NBL wins)
5 - 0 Montgomery
4 - 2 Santa Rosa
2 - 3 Piner
2 - 3 Rancho
0 - 3 Ukiah
0 - 3 Ursuline
0 - 4 Elsie Allen

End of Season Banquet and Awards Presentation - Saturday, Dec 5

All athletes and parents are invited to the PUMAS

Cross Country End of Season
Banquet

Awards Presentation

When:                      Saturday,
December 5, 5:30 to 8:00 pm

Where:                     Maria Carrillo
High School large gymnasium

Join the team for dinner, a
lively slide show featuring season highlights and an awards presentation.

Cost per dinner is $6.00
(includes pork pulled sandwich, pasta primavera, salad and dessert.) Dinner will
be catered by MCHS culinary class students.

Athletes are asked to please
bring drink donations and uniforms to the banquet.

Please submit your
reservation below with payment to teammate Ashley Gunderson at school or by mailing to Kristina
Gunderson at  2327 Rancho Cabeza Dr.
95404  no later than
Tuesday, November 24.  For questions, please contact Kristina at
Kristina_Gunderson@yahoo.com or 695-6462.

Volunteers are needed to
help as follows:

__4:30 – 5:30  set up                     __
decorations

__8:00 – 8:30 clean
up*                __
ice pick up and delivery to gym

(*athletes are expected to
help)

To volunteer, please
contact Kristin Thigpen at 539-1708 or email
at Kristin@thigpendesign.com.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                               PUMAS
Cross Country End of Season Banquet

Name:
______________________________________________________________

Phone Number:
________________         

Total number of dinners          Cost per
dinner            Total
Amount Enclosed

__________                             x      $6.00 each          =     $________________

Please make checks payable to Kristina Gunderson. Submit
this form with payment to Ashley Gunderson at school or mail to Kristina
Gunderson by November 24.   Questions?  Please contact Kristina.

Athletes
– remember to bring drink donation and uniform to banquet!

PRs set at 10-21 Meet at Rancho Cotate

25 runners set new "Personal Records" at our dual meet against Rancho - and are thus eligible for socks!  Jessica Halverson and Dan Dearden led the group with massive improvements over their time set in early September.  Great job everyone!

Rancho Cotate HS - 2.95 Mile Course
	2008	9/4/2009	10/21/2009	Name	New PR	Time Improved	% Improved
1		23:12	21:23	Jessica Halverson	21:23	1:49	7.8%
2		21:31	19:50	Daniel Dearden	19:50	1:41	7.8%
3		21:43	20:10	Dalin Lowder	20:10	1:33	7.1%
4		17:46	16:41	Jose Ramirez	16:41	1:05	6.1%
5		17:58	16:54	Harrison Luft	16:54	1:04	5.9%
6	22:46	18:50	17:47	James Nicklas	17:47	1:03	5.6%
7		21:49	20:52	Sophia Ramos	20:52	0:57	4.4%
8		19:24	18:34	Harsimmer Nijjar	18:34	0:50	4.3%
9		20:19	19:27	Heidi Thiele	19:27	0:52	4.3%
10	22:43	21:01	20:11	Gretel Petrie	20:11	0:50	4.0%
11		21:13	20:28	Brett Matos	20:28	0:45	3.5%
12	22:22	18:23	17:45	Gus Murray	17:45	0:38	3.4%
13		20:25	19:43	Conner Brady	19:43	0:42	3.4%
14	25:01	22:56	22:15	Carolyn Kerr	22:15	0:41	3.0%
15		20:23	19:47	Brynna Thigpen	19:47	0:36	2.9%
16	24:50	21:53	21:18	Austin Lynch	21:18	0:35	2.7%
17	21:02	18:11	17:46	Erik Christensen	17:46	0:25	2.3%
18	20:12	18:03	17:39	Grant Silverstein	17:39	0:24	2.2%
19	19:55	17:26	17:03	Emilio Horner	17:03	0:23	2.2%
20	23:58	21:00	20:34	Brett McFarland	20:34	0:26	2.1%
21	22:43	20:23	20:07	Margie Garza	20:07	0:16	1.3%
22		19:18	19:05	Lauren Kraus	19:05	0:13	1.1%
23		20:18	20:07	Kyle West	20:07	0:11	0.9%
24		19:56	19:49	Schuyler Mortimer	19:49	0:07	0.6%
25		19:02	18:57	Cara Curtin	18:57	0:05	0.4%