HARTLAND — As the dual meet season comes to a close, cross country teams begin to turn their attention to regionals, which determine whether they may participate in the Holy Grail, the state meet in early November.
So Brighton girls coach Kristi Matuszewski decided not to worry about one of her girls winning Tuesday’s dual at Hartland so much as having them work on running together.
So, while Hartland’s Michelle Moraitis won by 11 seconds, Brighton took the next five places and 10 of the next 11 in picking up a 20-41 win at Hartland High School.”
It was great pack running,” Brighton coach Kristi Matuszewski said. “We decided to let Michelle win and we went around their second girl. Sometimes I get used to seeing my little pack and I need to remember how fortunate I am that these girls are willing and able and driven enough to push it to run together and work together. The first five came through, but my whole team, you saw them pairing off, and that’s helpful in cross country running.”
It certainly came in handy for the Brighton boys, who beat Hartland by a point, 27-28.
“It was a little nerve-wracking back in the woods,” Brighton coach Chris Elsey said. “But my 3-4-5 guys came through in the end.”
After Zach Stewart won by 15 seconds, Hartland and Brighton alternated spots, two at a time, for the final result.
Brighton improved to 3-1 on the season, while Hartland fell to 1-3.
“Our guys ran well,” Hartland assistant coach Sam Kramer said. “We’re getting ready to run more invitationals and do well there. But from what I see, we did very,very well. We could have had one more spot, and that would have won the meet for us.”
But, overall, the Eagles were smiling for another reason: Coach Matt Gutteridge had become a father of a baby boy earlier in the day.
There was no word as to his availability for Saturday’s Portage Invitational, but the Eagles and Bulldogs both will be there. The invitational draws teams from around the state and is considered the last important invitational before regionals at the end of the month.
“It’s a good course,” Moraitis said. “I really like it. It’s been really cold the last few years but it’s a good course and I usually get my PR there every year. It’s fast and there’s a lot of good competitors.”
“We’re going to back into the thick of things at Portage and see how we do against the big girls and race in a lot of traffic,” Matuszewski said. “We need to see that. We saw that at Spartan and at Legends. It’s good to get that experience.”
The Brighton girls improved to 3-1 and moved into a tie for first with Milford and Pinckney after the Mavericks beat the Pirates Tuesday.
“It’s really special, given this is the last year the KLAA will have (Milford ad Pinckney) included,” she said.
Elsey said the Portage run is a chance for his team to get used to running in a pack against more than one team.
“At each of our meets we’ve run well as a pack together,” he said, “but now it’s the gap between 1 and 5 (finishing Brighton runners), to shrink it down as much as possible. They’ve been doing a nice job all season of running as a group.”
