There were a few meets this past week which featured OBC schools. First up was the Poinciana Invite on Wednesday, September 11th, held on campus at Poinciana High school, also site of the OBC championships in October. Liberty, Poinciana, Osceola, and St. Cloud competed in this weekday meet. As of press time, results were not yet available.
There were not many surprises in the race. Octavia Gonzalez was the girls’ winner, followed as usual by her teammates Karissa Solorzano & Grace Miller. She admittedly is not in love with the course, but won anyway. St. Cloud took the team title with a just 17 points; they took the top four positions.
Rogelio Araiza has brought his winning streak up to three races now. He won comfortably over Harvey Ferriera of St Cloud. Liberty as a team surprised some people (myself included) by winning the team title. They placed five runners in the top ten and had a team score of 28.
St Cloud took everyone to Gainesville for the Mountain Dew Invitational. The Harmony boys also made the trip up the turnpike to compete. It was a pretty impressive field, congrats to Tyler Bennet (Ft Myers) with an 18 second win in 15:24 and also to Julie Wollrath (Holy Trinity) with a 10 second win in 18:17.
Gateway made the trip to Oviedo and ran in the Hagerty Invitational. Spectators there watched Brandon Marquez (Timber Creek, 15:39) & Fatima Jaffer (Lake Mary, 19:30) win big over a nice collection of Central Florida schools.
News & Notes
Liberty & Celebration are going to be at the Jim Ryun invitational in Lakeland at Holloway Park. They are doing a “wave” start for the varsity races. I’m very intrigued by this and can’t wait to see how it works out for the top runners in the field.
Gateway, Osceola & St Cloud will be at Winter Springs for the Overbay-Monte Carlo Invitational. This is one of the top races in central Florida and will be a good measuring stick for St. Cloud and its state aspirations.
Poinciana & Harmony do not have any meets scheduled for this weekend.
OBC Preview
Octavia Gonzalez & teammate Karissa Solorzano are too close to call based on this past weekend in Gainesville. It’s going to be back and forth all season long, a showdown is imminent.
Rogelio Araiza won the PHS invite by an impressive margin, expect the same in October.
As for the team titles… St. Cloud will be its biggest opponent on the girl’s side, while Harmony & St. Cloud are going back and forth each week on the boy’s side. Liberty turned some heads with a win this past weekend, let’s see where that momentum leads as the season really gets moving on all cylinders.
Harmony:
The boys were in Gainesville against a stellar field. They were led by Jacob Gilbert (17:36) this week but Coach DePascale has to be impressed with three guys finishing under the 18 minute barrier. Rebecca Ouellette (22:28) was the only to run, she placed 156th.
St Cloud:
Everyone traveled to Gainesville for the big meet of the weekend. On the ladies side, Karissa (20:35) beat out Octavia (21:02 SB) to lead their team to a 22nd place finish. She ran her best time this season, and had this to say afterwards “I felt confident going into the race today. I had high hopes of running a seasons best on this specific course, especially after my experience the last two years at UF. I’m happy I could finish strong for my team and I can only hope to keep on moving up in the weeks to come”
Coach Harkema was pleased with today as well. “We didn’t have Grace today (she was at a family event), and I think we could have taken 15th with her there. It was nice to see Karissa up there, but I know she has a lot more. Octavia struggled that last mile today. My next three all had PR’s and I now have six girls under 23 minutes. We have a ways to go if we want to make it to state though. On the boys side, everyone had a seasons best time. Other than Blake, I didn’t even know they were going to run until after school started. They are now 4 weeks into the season and are starting to figure stuff out. We obviously have more work to do, but it should be fun to see how much each runner can improve. “
Harvey Ferriera (17:36) led his squad today and finished in 102nd place. St Cloud will be in Winter Springs to compete in the Overbay-Monte Carlo Invitational on September 21st.
Gateway:
Coach Branch took his team to Oviedo to run in the Hagerty Invitational. A nice field from central Florida gathered to watch the Brandon Marquez show. Stephanie Rosado (24:48) and Jose Alvarado (19:45) led the way today for the Panthers. Gateway will be in Winter Springs to compete in the Overbay-Monte Carlo Invitational on September 21st.
Celebration:
Celebration did not compete this week. They travel to Lakeland for the Jim Ryun Invitational on September 21st.
Liberty:
Liberty ran in the Poinciana Invitational this past week. Rogelio Araiza (18:45) won the race and led his team to the win as well. The girls were led again by Yazmizel Haase, but did not have enough runners for a team score. The Chargers will travel to Lakeland for the Jim Ryun Invitational on September 21st.
The last time we heard from Coach Pauley, he guaranteed a win, and then backed it up with the ole “ill shave my head and Mohawk” bet… well Araiza won, and his mohawk turned out better than his wife expected… he had this to say about the season thus far “Our team is very young in the sport of running and a novice in how to race. The men are responding well in the workouts as I continue to push them with such high intensity. Most of them did not train over the summer and really didn’t get started until the second week of school. This has caused us to skip some races on the weekends and focus on workouts instead. Araiza is still running strong and putting in a lot of mileage. His workouts will progress into another phase this week. We are all about peaking at the right time and juggling workouts with our new guys to challenge at the upcoming OBC championships.”
Poinciana:
Poinciana competed in its home invite on September 11. Results are not out as of press time for this piece. Matthew Luzi was the leader on the boy’s side.
Osceola:
Osceola also competed in the Poinciana invitational this week. They were led by Edwin Estrella on the boys side. The Kowboys will be in Winter Springs to compete in the Overbay-Monte Carlo Invitational on September 21st.
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