GRANITE CITY – Edwardsville senior cross country runner Jack Pifer won the boys varsity race at the Granite City Invitational Saturday morning, running the three-mile course in Wilson Park with a time of 15:17.03, faster than his time in the 2018 race.
Pifer’s strategy going into the meet, one of the season’s first big races, was very simple and effective.
“My strategy for the race today was basically, just to not dictate the pace myself,” Pifer said in an interview that followed the meet, “just let everyone else do what they want, and I’m just going to hang with them, and then, see how I feel at the end, and see if I can take the win.”
Which he did in a wonderful performance, and in a very good time as well.
“Yeah, it was a pretty good time,” Pifer said, “better than last year, and a pretty good time for the beginning of the season, so yeah.”
The Granite Invitational is considered to be one of the first big races of the year, and Pifer feels he’s in good shape as the new campaign starts.
“I think I’m in a pretty good position this season,” Pifer said. “I felt really good today, so I know I can definitely go much faster. My main focus is going to be on all the meets up in Peoria, so I got two of those in the regular season, and hopefully state, so the goal is to just lay it on the line on those ones.”
That’s a reference to the course at Detweiler Park in Peoria, where the two regular season meets will be held on the same course as the state meet in November. And Pifer also has some very ambitious goals for the Tigers as well.
“Well, first and foremost, we really want to make it up to state,” Pifer said, “and then, if we’re talking at the normal level, we really want our varsity guys to stay close as a pack. We want them as close together as possible; we have a lot of depth on the team this year, a lot of competition for those varsity spots. So, we want everyone to be as close as possible. We’ve been working on that, just staying in the group in our workouts, in our races, and it’s been working pretty well so far.”
Both Pifer and the Tigers do have high hopes, indeed, for the 2019 season, and it’s been so far, so good for both.
“Yeah, yeah, for sure,” Pifer said with a smile.
