Athlete of the Week - Matt Schiffbauer

The AotW for June 29th through July 5th is Matt Schiffbauer of Marshall University. Schiffy went out to Eugene over the weekend and ran 3:50.95 and 3:52.65 on back-to-back days to finish 5th in the 1500m at USATF Junior Nationals. TriStateRacer.com also went out to Eugene to watch the action. He wrote some great re-caps and took some incredible photos (like the one above) while at the meet. Everyone ought to take a few minutes and check it out, the photos alone are worth your while. At any rate, great job by Schiffy, clearly he is being well-coached and he will be going great places sooner rather than later. Best of luck as he prepares for his cross country campaign.

Special mention to Clara Grandt for running 34:13 in Oregon off of a tough two-week turn around from NCAAs. Great season, Clara.

Athlete of the Week - Zach Tennant

The AotW for June 22nd-28th is Zach Tennant of North Marion High School. Zach's final race of the year was at Nike Outdoor Nationals and he ran 4:19.09. He was at the head of the chase pack with 225m to go, but faded and lost a lot of time in the final half of the lap. This was his final race of the summer, so he'll be off the front page for quite a while. Congrats to Zach for a fantastic senior season, it's always great to see kids seeking out tough post-season competition.

Special mention to Jacob Burcham, he ran 4:43 at a meet down in Cabell Midland last weekend. After this weekend (USATFs), we'll be into the road racing season for the majority of the summer. Best of luck to everyone out there and I'm sure we'll see some new faces on AotW.

Athlete of the Week - Clara Grandt

The AotW for June 15th-21st is Clara Grandt. Clara wins her AotW via her 4th place finish in the 10,000m at the NCAA Championships. Clara ran 33:45 in a tough race, leading a very large portion of it. Clara is a fourth-year Mountaineer, trained by Sean Cleary. This is Ms. Grandt's first All-American performance, and it was an improvement of 7 spots from her finish last year. She is a Doddridge County graduate. She also has the qualifier for USATFs, but I have not heard if she's headed out to Eugene or not. Tip of the cap to everyone involved, it really is something special to see a girl go from leading the WV State Meet to leading deep into the 10,000m at NCAAs. A special mention about Tone Belt (Berkeley Springs) who finished 7th with a HJ of 7' 1 1/2".

Athlete of the Week - Zach Tennant

The AotW for June 8th-14th is Zach Tennant of North Marion High School. Zach earns his award (his 3rd in the last 5 weeks...) by virtue of his invasion of Virginia over the weekend. He attended the Milesplit.com Elite Gala and dominated the 1500m in a time of 3:54.89. Mr. Tennant is coached by Josh Simpson and is headed to William & Mary this Fall. Kudos to him for pursuing post-State Meet competition and for his stellar times. I've heard that he is going to run at Nike Outdoor Nationals later this month. Zach narrowly beat out some of the great performances down in Huntington over the weekend. Noteables were Bubby Dent who ran 15:59 at the age of 42, Andrew Benford who won the event, and Jacob Burcham who ran 16:32 at 1/3 the age of Mr. Dent. Tip of the cap to Pat Riley for putting on a first-class event and hopefully starting a new, yearly big-time race in WV.

This week will continue a great streak of WV running action with the NCAA T&F Championships starting on Wednesday and the Festival of Excellence up in Toronto on Thursday, in both events we'll have athletes up against some of the best in the world.

Athlete of the Week - Marie-Louise Asselin

The AotW for June 1st-6th is Marie-Louise Asselin. Marie runs for WVU under Sean Cleary and is a Sarnia, Ontario native. This past weekend she won the NCAA East Regional 5000m in a

time of 16:03.29, the second fastest time in WVU history. Some of her reported splits were 4:53 for 1600m and 9:19 for 3000m. She out-kicked Frances Koons down the homestretch. Her win qualifies her for the NCAA Championships June 10th-13th. West Virginians entered (as best as I can find) are: Tone Belt (Berkeley Springs/Louisville) in the LJ and HJ, Jasmine Cotten (Fayetteville/Cincinnatti) in the Heptathlon, Marie-Louise Asselin (WVU) in the 5,000m, Chelsea Carrier (Buckhannon-Upshur/WVU) in the 100h and Clara Grandt (Doddridge/WVU) in the 10,000m. Best of luck to everyone going to NCAAs.