NEOCX at the Ohio State CX Championships

Sure, there was great racing at Euclid this weekend – but we also know many of NEOCX’s top racers headed down to Dublin for the state CX championships.

Here are the results from Saturday and Sunday.

Not that every effort wasn’t monumental in its own right, but here are a few highlights:

NEOCX racers held the TOP 6 (yeah, the top freakin’ 6!) positions in the men’s Elite 1/2/3 race and 10 of the top 20 spots! NEOCX covered the podium with Paul Martin, Ernie Merenchin, Steve Twining, Shawn Adams, John Proppe and Greg Flecher. Cameron Jackson, Tony Marut and the amazing Rudy Sroka weren’t far behind… Wow!

And speaking of Tony Marut – he won the state championship for the U23 (19-22) men! Way to go Tony!

Our fairer sex athletes included Julie Lewis-Sroka as second place in the 3/4 race (but FIRST from Ohio!), and Sally Price and Samantha Brode taking second and third in the Women’s 1/2/3 race with Julie Lewis-Sroka a close sixth place in her second race of the day.

Julie Lewis-Sroka also claimed the state women’s singlespeed championship and second place in the women’s 45-49 race on Saturday.

Sara Harper claimed top spot in the women’s U23 (19-22) race and fifth place in Saturday’s Elite women 1/2/3 (non-championship) race.

The singlespeed top 10 championship was also filled with NEOCX racers – starting with state champ Ernie Merenchin. Rudy Sroka took fourth place. Paul Donatelli and Craig Hannibal were close behind in eight and ninth place.

In Masters categories – it looks like NEOCX racers pretty much cleaned up…

Jos Belich and Dale Seeds placed 1/2 in the men’s 60-64 race.

Rudy Sroka won the 55-59 master’s race followed by Tom Wilson, Marshal Leininger, Bill Flecher and Richard Grella in positions 5, 6, 7, and 9.

Derek Wilford dominated the men’s 50-54 race followed by Jim Laing and Jeff Kompa in positions 4 and 7.

Brent Evans and Nate Loman took the top two positions in the men’s 45-49 race with Tom Franek a close fourth behind them.

In the men’s 40-44 race, Jim Baldesare took the state race with Jason Suppan in third and James (Zak) Dieringer in fifth. Michael Adams finished 14th in the field.

Andrew Miller placed fourth (third Ohioan) in the men’s 30-34 race and went on to round out the top 10 in the men’s Cat 4 race.

It was a clean-sweep in the Saturday (non-championship) Elite men’s 1/2/3 race for NEOCX racers. John Proppe, Shawn Adams, Greg Flecher and Tony Marut took the top four positions with Nate Szabo coming in eighth spot in a tight race.

NEOCX Junior racers also showed them how it was done!

Robert Sroka claimed second position in the Junior men 17-18 race AND second place in the men’s Cat 3 race! So impressive and only getting better…

Junior 13/14 racer Max Hannibal of Pepper Pike took eight in his age-group race, but equally (if not more so) impressive was his 24th place finish among the senior category 4 men racers. What is next for this impressive junior?

First-year junior racer Keaton Adams garnered 10th position for the Junior men 10-12 race.

And keeping it in the Adams family – we welcome Kennedy Adams as the new Junior women’s 13-14 Ohio State CX Champion!

I know I’m a little partial to our own NEOCX racers, but holy crap! Twelve (12) State Championship jerseys are now owned by NEOCX racrs, along with nearly two dozen podium positions! What a great showing for everyone in Dublin and a way to put NEOCX and its awesome series of races on the map.

The results don’t lie – if you want to race against the best in the region – you’d better be racing NEOCX!

(Corrected 10/26/11, 10:24am to reflect 12 championship jerseys and Andrew Miller’s placement.)