Novi Men's Cross County team wins National Title

Fourteen athletes from the Novi area traveled to Orlando Florida recently and competed in the AAU Cross Country National Championships. All are members of the AAU Club named Team Ivon (Novi spelled backwards). Team Ivon earned the right to compete at Nationals by placing in the Michigan AAU State meet held late November.

In the Young Men Division (17-18 years old) Team Ivon had five athletes competing; just enough to be considered a full team. This group of athletes won the National Championship for their age division by beating the Westside (Louisville, Kentucky) Track Club by the closest of margins. Ivon scored 27; compared to 28 for Westside (low score wins). In addition, all five athletes from Team Ivon earned All-American honors by placing in the Top 25 finishers.

Ivon was paced by Mike Blaszczyk, who came in second overall. Mike’s time was 16:14 on the 5K course. Overall results:

2nd Mike Blaszczyk 16:14
12th Dan Egner 17:09
16th Geoff Giese 17:16
21st Alex Minghine 17:51
25th Chase Conrad 18:29

Seven Ivon athletes ran in the Intermediate Division (15-16 year olds) Joe Schubring lead the way for the club by placing 11th overall. Team Ivon came in 5th with a team score of 95 points. (The Central Florida Gliders won the Intermediate race with 44 points.) Overall results:

11th Joe Schubring 17:08
12th Brett Giampa 17:12
41st Steve Pravato 18:25
42nd Ryan Tgiros 18:26
48th Eric Gardner 18:42
52nd Chris Vera-Burgos 18:56
63rd Michael Benkarski 19:34

In the Youth Division, Team Ivon had two representatives. Ben Jenkins came in 38th in the 4K race (15:04) while Brennan Giese came in 70th (16:23).

“Having our Young Men win the National Team Title was an exceptional way to cap off the season” said Ivon Coach Dave Egner. “The fact that we were able to have 7 out of our 14 athletes earn All-American status demonstrates their full commitment to training and preparation. I could not be more proud of each and every member of Team Ivon”.

All of the runners are also members of the 2009 Novi High School Men's Cross Country Team, and trained under veteran head coach Robert Smith.