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Penguins optimistic for league meet
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Senior Jimmy Ramson has been one of the Penguins’ most consistent runners all season, finishing in the team’s top three at every meet.
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YSU senior Jake Lape will look to lead the Penguins to a strong finish at this weekend’s Horizon League cross country meet.
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
YSU cross country coach Brian Gorby knows his team isn’t going to knock off Butler at this week’s Horizon League meet.
As for the league’s other teams, well, who knows?
“We have a pretty good tradition of peaking well,” said Gorby. “We want to continue to build back to where we were in the ’90s and early 2000s when we had a 10-year streak of top-twos, top-threes.”
The men’s team finished sixth at last year’s meet, while the women’s team was fourth. With six seniors and a standout freshman in Eric Rupe, Gorby believes a good race could help the men finish as high as second and no worse than fourth.
“We have a really good senior class, and when you add a young man like Eric Rupe, who has that kind of talent with an even better work ethic and attitude, you’ve got a good team,” said Gorby.
Six of the team’s nine men’s runners are seniors, led by Jim Ramson (Poland), who has finished in team’s top spot in two of the five meets and hasn’t been worse than third among his teammates. Joe Copploe (McDonald) has been in YSU’s top four in every meet and Jake Lape (Boardman) and Scott Denham have been in the top five in all but one.
Rupe (Maplewood) has only run in four meets, but he’s been in YSU’s top three of all of them and was 30 seconds better than any Penguin in the Oct. 17 Falcon Invitational at Bowling Green.
On the women’s side, sophomore Samantha Hamilton (Jackson-Milton) has been tremendous, finishing in the team’s top spot at all five meets. Sophomore Katherine Digby and freshman Anna Pompeo (Poland) have been solid behind Hamilton and sophomore Nelly Yegon has been running better in recent weeks. At the league meet, the Penguin women have improved from 10th (last) in 2007, to seventh in 2008 to fourth last year.
“Realistically, maybe four weeks ago we were hoping to challenge for fourth [at the league meet],” said Gorby. “But we’ve made huge jumps in the last few weeks, not just improving seconds but minutes.
“We’re hoping to improve from fourth and hopefully get third. And it would be great to bring that runner-up trophy.”
Butler’s men’s team has won 12 straight Horizon League men’s titles — finishing with a top score in the past three — while the Bulldog women have won seven of eight, including last year’s crown.
“They’re almost insurmountable, so we just want to improve on our performances from last year” said Gorby. “The key this week is health. We’re at about 98 percent right now and I’ve been preaching to the kids that we need to get to 100 percent this week.
“We might not have the depth we’ve had but we have five or six solid runners on both sides.”