Boys cross country blazes way to state championship

After tearing through meets all season, and reaching as high as the No. 2 ranked boys cross country team in the nation by time (MileSplit), the Comets came into the State Championship with lofty but realistic expectations of a long elusive title.

The team, to say the least, wasn’t disappointed.

Solon crushed the competition on Nov. 5, managing to set a new state record for margin of victory in the process. The team put up a score of 79, while second place Hudson mustered just 156 points. The Comets were led by seniors Joe Riordan and Danny Cohen, who finished in 9th and 12th place, respectively.

Coach Brian Sabol attributed the team’s dominating win to their unselfish mentalities.

“We don’t rely on just one guy,” Sabol said. “The whole team did their job and collectively they accomplished something that no other team has done before.”

Cohen said the record was just another indicator of all the training and time spent before the state meet and throughout the season.

“Even the week leading up to the state meet, we thought it was going to be challenging to just win the title,” Cohen said. “To break the record for largest margin of victory just makes the hard work all of us have done over the past couple of years really feel worth it. It makes our season even more unforgettable and wouldn’t have been possible without every guy on the team doing his part.”

In fact, the team’s collective effort was a key factor in winning the meet. The average finish for each Comet was 15:49, nearly 20 seconds faster than the next lowest average of Thomas Worthington High School (16:06).

Junior Chantz Visse, senior Max Gross and Cohen all mentioned that after last season’s third place finish at States, the goal was to return and conquer.

“We knew we had the potential [to win], but we stayed humble to make it reality,” Visse said. “We felt like we were on top of the world when we stood on that podium, and that experience bonded this tightly knit team even closer together.”

Cohen said the individual success he’s had throughout his four years at SHS meant nothing without the title to show for it.

“It felt and still feels pretty surreal that we were able to win a state title,” Cohen said. “It’s…pretty strange to work for something your entire life and when you actually get that dream to come true, it doesn’t feel real.”

Gross declared that this season, everything just came together. And he couldn’t be happier about it.

“You’ll never meet a more dedicated and amazing group of kids than the 2016 cross country team,” Gross said. “Our runners performed and we all lucked out with the greatest coach in Solon history and in my opinion, the greatest coach to ever coach in Ohio. Coach Sabol did things with and for our team that we could’ve never asked for. My teammates and I love him more than just as our cross country coach. We are a family.”