(Image courtesy of St. Francis de Sales Athletic Department ~ @SFSAthletics)
If a single word is required to describe the way that cross country teams across gender and division have performed this cross season, 'historic' is the only word that can do the performances justice. But as head coach Aaron Al-Sorghali of Toledo St. Francis attests this nomenclature is only appropriate given the traditional underselling of the region at the state level.
Coach Al-Sorghali's Knights add to the Perrysburg girls, Ottawa Hills boys, Botkins boys Liberty Center girls, Minster girls, and Lexington girls who all look to bring post season glory back to their schools and our region. While for some of these programs the success is near perennial the Knights of St. Francis are new to this stage, qualifying to state last year but finishing outside the top fifteen at the state meet. This year, I have a confidence for them that the results will be different.
I spoke with coach Aaron Al-Sorghali and was able to catch him at the turning point of the year from the regular season to the postseason and asked about both halves. To begin how did coach Al-Sorghali feel about the results, specifically the success that they found this year, "It was fun, it was some different phases for us from early year to now, and now we are ready for chapter two, chapter one was fun our group of guys is fun and work hard, so as coaches we are excited to see their hard work pay off."
I was curious if there were any points that stuck out in a regular season with so many high points and coach Al-Sorghali pointed to, "Riverside we were runner up and went on a winning streak that we didn't know we could do, beyond that we had two of our guys break the school record at Berlin Bear invitational both going under 15:37."
Naturally, as Al-Sorghali mentions that they were unsure of the success they would have he thought to what the signs of this year's success could have been, "we were happy and surprised during indoor, outdoor we had district success but sometimes it doesn't translate so we celebrated last year's track success but were not sure it would show, we brought in a basketball player Jameson Heck who along with and Sam Arquette both in track really only ran the 800 for us so we have had to be patient".
Coach Al-Sorghali also informed me of the well-oiled nature that St. Francis de Sales is, in a credit to their coaches for multiple sports the D-1 knights have starting basketball player in their top along with a dual fall sport athlete. Sam Arquette plays soccer as well as races for the knights, a refreshing change of pace for large schools given the trends towards sport specialization.
Looking then to the postseason I asked coach Al-Sorghali what he could see playing out and how they approach their potentially exciting championship meets ahead, "We don't see ourselves significantly ahead, we approach racing with a team meeting Thursday to breakdown the meet, we do not set up goals with other guys, our plan going forward is asking the question what do we need to do at state and work to build back from there, working on ourselves. If we are in a meet and execute our plan but do not win that is ok."
Another coach offering a different perspective on the way they work to develop postseason plans. With an eye on state to simply build their plan around I asked further if the rankings for the state from OATCCC have been playing a role in the minds of the Knights coaches or team, "It's exciting, it's nice to work hard and be recognized. As coaches we are excited to see hard work pay off and the guys to be celebrated. We have a level of maturity that is refreshing, first time we won Tiffin but we showed up and went back to work that following Monday like it never happened."
Refreshing indeed to have teams that experience success but remain humble, perhaps it is our Midwest virtue or it is the nature of distance runners but in speaking with many successful teams in Ohio you do not find many chest beaters.
This past weekend now the Knights of St Francis de Sales began their postseason run and won the TRAC, only the first step towards that goal of representing the Northwest with dignity at the state meet. Best of luck to coaches and athletes.