The OBC championships are finally here, and the state series begins very shortly as well. It's playoff time! Team by team weekly recaps to follow.
Full Preview for OBC championships:
Girls Individuals
Contender (s) - The top girls are all from St. Cloud. Karissa (defending champ), Grace & Octavia have each had their time to shine throughout the season, but only one can cross first. Octavia started off the season by leading the team at the Harmony, Poinciana & Edgewater Invitationals. Karissa led since until just recently, running well at the UF, Overbay, & Flrunners.com Invitationals. Grace took advantage of Karissa’s absence at St. Cloud and took 2nd place. She also had a great race in Tallahassee at Pre-State, leading her squad to a win in the Varisty A race. As you may have heard the line famous line before “your only has good as your last ballgame”, Grace was six seconds better in their last race. This one will be interesting, but these three can tell you best, I got the chance to talk with them just recently.
Maybe next year – The top three have been stellar when compared to everyone else, but the All OBC team has to make room for four others. Look out for Devin Montalvo & Kim Napolean (both from St Cloud), Keilah Vicari (Osceola), Christine Infantolino (Ccelebration) Yazmizel Haase (Liberty), and Rebecca Ouelette (Harmony) to make some noise and try to make that top seven.
Interview: St. Cloud trio of Karissa Solórzano, Octavia Gonzalez, and Grace Miller discuss their season thus far and the OBC meet
Individuals – Boys
Contender – Rogelio Araiza has been in a league of his own since winning the OBC championship last October. He has not been defeated by anyone from Osceola County since October 13, 2012 at the Edgewater Invitational (Antonio Montalvo – St. Cloud). That success continued to the track, where he won the 1600m, 800m, and anchored the 4x800m last May at the track championships. He does very well at the Poinciana course with four wins to date, including middle school!!
Maybe next year – This list has time to grow, especially since Araiza is only a junior. Some names that will be in contention include: Harvey Ferriera (St. Cloud), Edwin Estrella (Osceola), Jose Loredo & Jacob Gilbert (Harmony), Justin Corinealdi (Celebration), and teammates Deshaun Jennings & Ryan Yarde. As I stated in a previous article, Araiza has won head to head against everyone here multiple times.
Team – Girls
Contender – St. Cloud has only one potential challenge here, getting a perfect score. It has been done recently before (2011), and it will be difficult this year. But the possibility definitely exist with the top four girls all wearing bulldog colors. Can Vicari, Haase, or Ouellete break into their top five? Kim Napoleon might have the tough task of staying ahead of these three county rivals.
Maybe next year – Osceola and Harmony will trade spots back and forth to see who takes 2nd place. Osceola has the firepower in the front, but is lagging when it comes to the #5 runner. Harmony has the depth, but that depth comes from freshman and sophomores that are typically not as prepared for larger, championship races.
Interview: Coach Harkema (St. Cloud) discusses his team's season and outlook for OBC's
Team – Boys
Contender(s) - This will be the most exciting race of the day. Harmony came out blazing at its home invite back in August. They beat all the county teams pretty soundly (lesson here - know the course!!). Since then they have faded to 3rd in the three team race, but in their defense, have not ran their top five all together in a head to head race since then. St. Cloud looks to have an edge if you only look at rankings, but this is where different courses can alter perception and give some people a false sense of confidence. Liberty has defeated St. Cloud two times heads up (Poinciana Invite & St Cloud Invite). All three teams ran the same course at the Flrunner.com invite, but St. Cloud ran in the Invitational, Liberty & Harmony ran in the unseeded race. This one is really too close to call.
Maybe next year – Osceola and Gateway are next in line to finish off the top five. Osceola has an elite wrestling team that contends for state titles on a consistent basis. They use XC as a way to get the team prepared for the grueling schedule, hopefully for them that trend continues and the success should be distributed. Coach Branch has work to do to get Gateway in contention in future years, but a new coach can hopefully fire up a team.
Interview: Coach Pauly and Rogelio Areiza discuss the season so far and upcoming OBC meet
Full District Preview next week
Harmony:
The Girls team went to Disney to run around the Wide World of Sports. The guys did not run (they ran at UF while the girls did not). Virginia Liu led her team, their usual leader Rebecca did not run this weekend. Liu was just a few second off her season best time, but then again, Disney has a tough course.
St Cloud:
The boys had the weekend off while the ladies left Friday to go visit Tallahassee. They were slated to run in the Varisty A race, the 3rd tier among seeding for this huge meet. Coach Harkema thought they deserved a shot at the Select race, but no need to ponder things now…. They won! They took first place by a wide margin in their group. Grace Miller set a PR by over 30 seconds to take 3rd in the race she beat out teammate Karissa Solorzano who took 6th and also set a PR.
From Coach Harkema… “I was stoked with 3 girls in particular, Grace and Karissa ran side by side the entire way for the first 1.25 miles. Grace finished great to run a 19:22, followed quickly by Karissa at 19:28. It was pretty awesome to watch them today because they reached down deep and kept going. If I could figure out Octavia last mile we would be golden. She leads every workout, so I’m not quite sure what is going on. I was also happy with Devin Montalvo because this was her first time breaking 21, huge for our team moving forward. Kim ran decent, but Jessica and Emily set a PR today as well. the whole trip ended up being great for the team, being in the varsity A group was a blessing so we could bring home some hardware. I still think they have more in the tank and I just hope I can do my best to get it out of them.”
Liberty:
Liberty took the short trip to Disney, but they ran Friday evening with the 2A groups instead of with the 3A on Saturday. Rogelio ran a season best of 16:47 running with some familiar faces. He competed against the Titusville duo of Walton & Jones that paced the field at St. Cloud. This one was a little closer however, as he finished just 2 seconds behind Jones this weekend. The rest of the team did what was asked of them as they showed their mettle to earn their spot on the top 7.
Gateway:
Gateway was busy this week running Wednesday at Celebration and then again Saturday at Disney. Jose Alvarado and Stephanie Rosado led respectively at both meets. The boys gave Celebration a good test on Wednesday, but came up just a few points short in the end.
Coach Branch was happy with Disney, saying afterwards “I think our athletes did a good job at the Disney meet even with hills they had that we weren't accustomed oo. We had some guys step up that are usually behind the pack. I think if our athletes come out and compete like I know they can, they will surprise some people.”
Osceola:
Osceola ran Wednesday at Celebration. Kelilah Vicari and Edwin Estrella shined for the Kowboys as usual, taking 2nd and 3rd respectively. Both runners should make the top seven at OBC championships. At the most recent home meet there, Keilah won and Edwin took 2nd, and as most good cross country runners know, familiarity plays a big role in performance.
Celebration:
Celebration hosted a friendly on Wednesday and took the win for both girls and boys races. Justin Corinealdi broke out of a recent funk to win handily over teammate Diego Sanchez. Christine Infantolino won the girls race and looks to be back in shape after her recent injury woes. This young group will have a tough task as a team in coming weeks, but youth always has a chance to mature.
Poinciana:
Poinciana did not compete this weekend.
More Coverage
- 2013 OBC Meet Page (Stay tuned for complete coverage)
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