After a trip and loss to conference powerhouse West Johnston the week before, the Knights hosted Clayton at Anderson Point Park last Wednesday and the men and women Comets recorded the win by a sizeable margin. The final score for the men was 68-19, and 75-15 for the women.

Still, Johnson's focus is in the same place her runners' focus is - the future.

"What I'm hoping for is we have two more meets and I want to see some team records broken," Johnson said. "We're not having a great season in terms of winning meets, but I'm seeing some kids make big improvements."

Those records mentioned are within arms' reach for a pair of Knights. Jaha Cruz is about 16 seconds away from capturing the women's' record and Matt Gleason is about 45 seconds from doing the same for the men.

As for the day, Johnson said she was most pleased with her young runners. She said Anna Powell has come a long way and is one of those runners with no excuses - "simply a hard worker," she said. Julia Mbugua has continued to shave time off her run week-by-week, and sophomore Kevin Mendoza is someone Johnson thinks can be a force to reckon with in future seasons.

"He (Mendoza) just turned in a 24, so you figure by senior year he should be very competitive and successful," she said, noting several runners on the female team also turned in some of their better times in Wednesday's meet.

At the beginning of the season Mendoza was running the 5K in the 28-minute range. Dropping four minutes over the course of six meets is something he says he can continue to build on if he applies himself.

"By senior year I think I'll do really good," Mendoza said. "Our best, Matt, runs like 18s, so if I did that I'd be satisfied."

Johnson said if Mendoza continues to work hard he should be able to do just that, noting running "runs" in his family.