WEST CATHOLIC FALCONS

WEST CATHOLIC FALCONS

WEST CATHOLIC FALCONS

The Official Site of Grand Rapids West Catholic High School Athletics

The Official Site of Grand Rapids West Catholic High School Athletics

The Official Site of Grand Rapids West Catholic High School Athletics

WEST CATHOLIC FALCONS

The Official Site of Grand Rapids West Catholic High School Athletics

West Catholic Falcons

The Official Site of Grand Rapids West Catholic High School Athletics

Boys Varsity Cross Country


Game Summaries & Team News
Game Summaries All Game Summaries
Boys Varsity Cross Country-Regionals-Allendale
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
This cross country season is one of the longer ones out of the other sports. We start work in June building our base mileage. We continue consistent running, workouts, and routines all the way through the fall. It all comes to a head at Regionals in Allendale. The stakes feel higher while the pressure is on us to run our fastest time or hit a place we are aiming for! Regardless of outcome, however, this team has shown resilience and both coaches are proud of what we have done this season!  The boys had everyone compete for varsity for the meet. Four year runner, Matt Bouwhuis, his senior year, last chance to hit a PR, did so with a 20:24! Way to finish strong Matt! Big improvements came from Charles Brooks (17:48) PR, who was 1st for varsity, Tim O’Brien (19:08) PR, and Evan Murphy (20:25) PR! Way to hit those PRs boys! Andrew Bajdek ran his last senior cross race with a great race, (18:04) PR! Noah Ysasi (22:56) and Frankie Pelak (20:44) with good races as well! Solid improvement all around! This boys team had to fight all season! The smallest number of people want to run cross country and when the size of our team is just enough for varsity, they know they are carrying the West Catholic logo with pride. They are very close as a team and push each and every day! Can’t wait to see where we all go in the coming seasons while our seniors left out there for the last time! Good season boys! We also want to recognize our seniors of Matt and Andrew for being leaders of the team and good teammates  all around! Matt started out freshman year and made an impact with  his attitude and positive spirit with his teammates! He finished out running his fastest race! Andrew joined the team his senior year and led by example on his work ethic and attitude! Happy to say he made awesome strides as the season went on and finished out running his fastest race! Can't wait to see where the future takes them!!  
Boys Varsity Cross Country- Final Conference at Hamilton
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
Boys Varsity Cross Country- Final Conference at Hamilton
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
Boys Varsity Cross Country vs. Multiple Opponents-October 8th
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
Boys Varsity Cross Country-Cougar Falcon Invitational
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
Boys Varsity Cross Country vs. Multiple Opponents
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
Boys Varsity Cross Country-Regionals-Allendale
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
This cross country season is one of the longer ones out of the other sports. We start work in June building our base mileage. We continue consistent running, workouts, and routines all the way through the fall. It all comes to a head at Regionals in Allendale. The stakes feel higher while the pressure is on us to run our fastest time or hit a place we are aiming for! Regardless of outcome, however, this team has shown resilience and both coaches are proud of what we have done this season!  The boys had everyone compete for varsity for the meet. Four year runner, Matt Bouwhuis, his senior year, last chance to hit a PR, did so with a 20:24! Way to finish strong Matt! Big improvements came from Charles Brooks (17:48) PR, who was 1st for varsity, Tim O’Brien (19:08) PR, and Evan Murphy (20:25) PR! Way to hit those PRs boys! Andrew Bajdek ran his last senior cross race with a great race, (18:04) PR! Noah Ysasi (22:56) and Frankie Pelak (20:44) with good races as well! Solid improvement all around! This boys team had to fight all season! The smallest number of people want to run cross country and when the size of our team is just enough for varsity, they know they are carrying the West Catholic logo with pride. They are very close as a team and push each and every day! Can’t wait to see where we all go in the coming seasons while our seniors left out there for the last time! Good season boys! We also want to recognize our seniors of Matt and Andrew for being leaders of the team and good teammates  all around! Matt started out freshman year and made an impact with  his attitude and positive spirit with his teammates! He finished out running his fastest race! Andrew joined the team his senior year and led by example on his work ethic and attitude! Happy to say he made awesome strides as the season went on and finished out running his fastest race! Can't wait to see where the future takes them!!  
Boys Varsity Cross Country- Final Conference at Hamilton
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
West Catholic cross country competed for their final conference race at Diamond Springs Golf Course on Wednesday. For the boys, Charles Brooks and Andrew Bajdek ran together in formation, sticking together throughout it. Charles ran (18:11) and Andrew (18:12)! Tim O’Brien broke into the 19s with a (19:51) PR! Tim has run PR times when it has counted! Tim was followed by Matt Bouwhuis (20:51), Frankie Pelak (21:15), Evan Murphy (21:16), Noah Ysasi (23:00)! They all stuck on each other’s backs while having solid finishes on the straightaway! Nice racing boys!   As our team likes to say “the hay is in the barn.” We have had many weeks of training, growing in the sport and as a team in the process. A lot of us have made significant improvement and ran through some tough conditions and scenarios. Most of our boys are new to the sport or are underclassmen besides a couple! We have a ton of room to grow and the future is bright for this group! But this season has been a solid one for us, some good PRs mixed in with us hitting some of our goals. But Allendale is the course to finish strong and hit those PRs! It is the opportunity for our seniors to finish their running careers and be proud of the work they put in! Let’s do it West!
Boys Varsity Cross Country- Final Conference at Hamilton
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
West Catholic cross country competed for their final conference race at Diamond Springs Golf Course on Wednesday. For the boys, Charles Brooks and Andrew Bajdek ran together in formation, sticking together throughout it. Charles ran (18:11) and Andrew (18:12)! Tim O’Brien broke into the 19s with a (19:51) PR! Tim has run PR times when it has counted! Tim was followed by Matt Bouwhuis (20:51), Frankie Pelak (21:15), Evan Murphy (21:16), Noah Ysasi (23:00)! They all stuck on each other’s backs while having solid finishes on the straightaway! Nice racing boys!   As our team likes to say “the hay is in the barn.” We have had many weeks of training, growing in the sport and as a team in the process. A lot of us have made significant improvement and ran through some tough conditions and scenarios. Most of our boys are new to the sport or are underclassmen besides a couple! We have a ton of room to grow and the future is bright for this group! But this season has been a solid one for us, some good PRs mixed in with us hitting some of our goals. But Allendale is the course to finish strong and hit those PRs! It is the opportunity for our seniors to finish their running careers and be proud of the work they put in! Let’s do it West!
Boys Varsity Cross Country vs. Multiple Opponents-October 8th
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
The Portage Invitational feels like a spectacle more than any other of our races. With good competition and the large number at the starting line, we tend to run a solid race! For the boys Andrew Bajdek ran his best time 18:05! Andrew has had one of the best progressions on the team; using practice as an opportunity to get better at racing, and that is showing through his splits and improvement in the season! Matt Bouwhuis ran his season’s best with a 20:31! Both Matt and Andrew are looking to finish their senior seasons strong with two more, regular races for them! Tim O’Brien improved again with a 20:18 PR! Let’s keep the trend going! Frankie Pelak also ran 20:44 on the day! Solid improvement Frankie! Evan Murphy (20:28), Helib Kuzmenko (22:05), and Noah Ysasi (22:47)  also ran solid races because they kept their teammates on their sights the whole time!   Next up is the last conference race at Hamilton. Unfamiliar course, but we’ll be ready!  
Boys Varsity Cross Country-Cougar Falcon Invitational
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
Sometimes we have days where the right breakfast was eaten, shoes were tied right, and our breathing was on point! Seemed to be the case for the Cougar-Falcon Invitational at Gainey Field. A meet that has had extreme weather through the years, either raining all day or progressively hot. We took advantage of the plenty of competition and cooler temperatures to have great times all across the board. The boys only raced 5 due to sickness from some of their teammates. We’re happy to see Charles Brooks hit an awesome PR, 17:59, before he was dealing with an injury and just trying to get into the low 18 minute range! Andrew Badjek didn’t follow too far behind while he ran a huge PR, 18:20! Sophomore Evan Murphy used his competition to his advantage and hit a PR of 20:30 to be third for varsity! Also racing again was Hilib Kuzmenko, and for joining the sport recently, ran a 22:05 and had a great finish on just pure will to do so! While Noah Ysasi and Michael Roche may have not hit a personal record on the day, they both were close to it, and as freshman they are building their experience up which is what you need in a sport like this. Experience at feeling pain and discomfort through and through. But more experience and training makes the faster times feel a little more tolerable, even though it should always feel hard at the end of the race! We are proud of how the team showed up. As Coach Duba says it best, “we should be peaking mid season” and building up after that. It is basically mid-season and seeing a race like that excites both coaches on what is to come! So this week brings one race on Saturday, the Fruitport Invitational. This course is fresh in our minds. We just ran our first conference race there. There should be no reason why we all can’t improve our times from the last one there! A full week of practice, with only one race, a familiar course coming up, off the heels of a great race Saturday, feels like a recipe for success!  What the rest of the season looks like is each practice is important, not only for keeping our fitness up, but staying healthy! We can have meets like we did on Saturday every time, if we don’t underestimate our workout days, easy days, stretching, and other core and racing routines. It is all significant to our success as a runner! It requires us to remain focused and never lose sight of our goals we made for ourselves at the beginning of the season! But we’ll celebrate a great showing on Saturday as well! Great work Falcons!  
Boys Varsity Cross Country vs. Multiple Opponents
1 year ago | Chase Boshoven
Falcons Lose: -
Another year brings another warm and hilly race at the St. Francis Retreat Center for the Michigan Catholic XC Invitational! Our Falcon boys took advantage of a cooler early race on Saturday to all hit solid times! Charles Brooks was the 1st of the five varsity and hit more than a minute PR, 18:43! Senior Andrew Bajdek’s cross country debut led to a 19:01 and 2nd for the varsity boys! Charles and Andrew worked in tangent which helped them to move up well in the race. Also running in tangent were Tim O’Brien (20:15) and Evan Murphy (20:16)! In his senior year Matt Bouwhuis ran a 21:58 surpassing what he ran at this last year, hitting his goal for the day!  We also had two of our guys in the 2 mile race. Noah Ysasi was 4th overall and hit a 2 mile PR! While sophomore Frankie Pelak was 6th overall and ran a tough race! They both took home top ten medals because of it! Nice work boys! We’ll have a lot of good training until the Ottawa Hills Invitational on Friday September 16th. That is the race where the training wheels are off, and everyone runs a 5k! But the boys were about spot on to what we had planned for the race. We’ll continue to work on those fundamentals of the sport; improving our pacing, while fine tuning the elements of starting and finishing a race. We have a tight group of kids that will push each other to help reach their goals! Can’t wait to see how it takes shape!  

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