South Florida's Fastest 5 Boys
Joshua Collins (Junior, Belen Jesuit)
For this week's south Florida top five performances, we have our first repeating top performer for the season and it's only week three. Belen Jesuit's, Joshua Collins, is back to running the top time in south Florida for the week. Last time we saw him here, Collins ran a time of 16:09.50 and came in first at the Fleet Feet Invitational. Now after only running two seconds off that time, Collins takes the top performance with a 16:11.61. He ran this time down in Miami at the King of The Hill meet and placed first, increasing his wins for the season to four.
Last time we interviewed Collins, he talked about his season goals and team goals. Personally a big goal for him this year is to break 15 minutes, which doesn't seem impossible. Collins has run two races now with times about 20 seconds off of his personal best of 15:52.21. Plus, he has yet to race with a decent pack of runners up in the front to push the pace. All of his wins this season have been him running mainly by himself or with one other runner. On the team side, Collins talked about how they're continuing every day in practice to close gaps so that has a whole, they'll score better. We saw a good showing from the team at the King of The Hill meet as far as them working on those gaps. They're second, third, and fourth came in 9th, 10th, and 12th.
Deshay Fernandes (Junior, Columbus)
Coming in second place for top performances is last week's top performer, Deshay Fernandes from Christopher Columbus. Fernandes came in first last week with a time of 16:25.17 beating Collins at the Miami Dade Youth. Fernandes opened up strong last week and still ran a great time this week at the King of The Hill meet, where he crossed the line at 16:32.40. He looked strong and held the lead for the majority of the race but in the end came second to Collins. After talking to Fernandes last week, we can assure you that he will be back chasing that top performance again.
Danny Ferro (Junior, Calvary Christian)
Next up is Junior, Danny Ferro from Calvary Christian Academy, who takes the third top performance this week for south Florida. Ferro came in third place at the King of The Hill meet and there he ran a time of 16:44.33. Early this season, Ferro took a win at the First Maverick Stampede. There he ran a time of 17:15.81, so with a 30 second drop he's looking in great shape. He also finished sixth at the state finals last year, running 16:16.47.
Ryan Szklany (Junior, Highlights Christian Academy)
The fourth fastest performance this week comes from a familiar face. Ryan Szklany, who is from Highlands Christian Academy, was last week's second top performer after winning the Park Vista Cobra Invite with a time of 16:30.17. This week though, Szklany takes fourth place at the King of The Hill meet. There he ran 16:47.27 and just missed third place by three seconds. After talking to Szklany last week, he definitely wants to break 16 minutes and that's for sure a reachable goal for him.
William Shine (Senior, Archbishop McCarthy)
Making the list of south Florida's top performances again and coming in fifth this time is senior William Shine. Shine had the fourth fastest performance last week where he ran a 16:42.42 at the Park Vista Cobra Country XC Invitational. This week, Shine ran a time of 16:52.02 and placed fifth at the King of The Hill meet.