I would have mounted it on the very top of the announcers booth at Sperling Sports complex; the one sandwiched in between the four ball fields. From there it would have an unobstructed view of everything, as far as the eye could see. I guess I would have turned it on at 11:00 AM. Below, the bucolic scene of green, manicured lawns and stately shade trees was interrupted only by the endless back and forth patterns of a fleet of service vehicles: lawnmowers, tractors, golf carts and field liners.
Suddenly, two cars pull up, a white SUV and a gray pickup. Two Deland coaches jump out, quickly unload, carry computers up into the press box, then leap into their cars again. They drive and stop, drive and stop, all around the park. At intervals they leap out, rapidly hammer in a section of PVC stakes, then even more quickly decorate it with caution tape. (Later, these will become the barriers around which runners weave in and out.)
Off in the distance, and far above their heads, Skydive DeLand planes take off, eject a load of black dots that fall quickly, unfold into brightly colored parachutes, float downward, and land. Above them, a number of jet trails that had, up to now, been traveling horizontally, suddenly go sharply vertical; straight up into the sky. A few frames later, the thunderous explosion of a Space Shuttle crosses their path as it clips across the Southeast corner of Sperling before turning on its back and heading out over the Atlantic. You can briefly see the bright flash of its engines as it reaches maximum thrust and quickly goes beyond our visual range. The voluminous clouds of exhaust finally slow and shrivel into an interwoven tangle of white clouds.
As they finish their preparation of the day‘s course, the frantic pace of the coaches ceases. They disappear from sight, probably in an effort to get out of the blazing sun. After a while a few more cars arrive. Then a bus arrives, parks and leaks a line of brightly garbed passengers towards the shade trees that radiate out from the announcers building. Colorful blankets and a tent are spread. More and more cars and buses arrive, adding to the assemblage below, until a veritable village has been erected.
The pace quickens. People, both walking and running, follow distinct patterns of movement around the park: a big outer loop, a smaller inner loop, then a truncated outer loop to the funnel-shaped ribbons in the middle of all this mayhem.
The chaos seems to slow, then re-intensifies at 4:00 as the first race lines up. The straight line surges, then congeals like a glob of liquid humanity. Mobs of people undulate back and forth, following the river of runners around the park. Not long after, another race goes off, then a third and a fourth. By then bright lights have been turned on to add a halo of illumination to what is now a turbulent sea of color and shapes: soccer games, softball and baseball games, and hundreds of spectators have flooded the scene. It is humanity at its most exhilarating moment.
Let’s stop the forward progress of our tape and back up. Not too far. (If we go back to Sperling in 2005, we will be able to see the Flagler-Palm Coast team win the fifth of their six consecutive boys conference championships; the sixth was in Flagler’s Princess Place Park.) Just before the girls JV race at 4:00, coach David Halliday is running all over the place, checking on this and that. (FHSAA should red shirt him and let him run with his varsity.)
Intercepting him on one of his missions, I asked about his varsity team’s absence at most of the local meets this year.
“I try to mix it up. I like interesting courses. The Manhattan Invitational was a great meet. The state meet will be a hot, hilly, and challenging course and we want to be prepared for it.”
While there are many reasons to want to extend his streak as conference champion, he is looking further down the road, towards November 17th.
“Districts and regionals don’t mean as much. Two years from now, no one will remember who won them. Our goal is to prepare for the end of the season.”
Spruce Creek girls coach Willie Lager concurs.
“The conference championship is for bragging rights. The district meet is important, but the regionals are very important. If a girl is hurting (today), we’ll keep her out. Every kid wants to do her part toward the All-Sports Trophy. (At Spruce Creek) The JV trophy is important because they want to win the conference JV title.”
Lager was referring to a Volusia/Flagler championship that includes all sports (except football), where points are awarded based on the final finishing place. Ten points go to the team that finishes first, nine for second, etc.
He also gives us a perspective on the upcoming events.
“The districts are going to be a fight with Bartram Trail. They’ve beaten us twice this year, but we think we can get them. And the regions…our region is the toughest in the state. We’re ranked fourth, but we hope to do better. First we have to get there. We have to stay healthy and stay together.”
And that last statement, in a nutshell, is how they got to a sweep of the 5 Star Conference Championships. In the girls varsity race, Deland’s Brooke Baumann’s relentless pressure on Mandy Perkins was the only fly in Creek’s ointment. As Baumann pressed Perkins with more and more emphatic surges, the eventual winner (19:15.71) had to, out of necessity, break contact with her running mate Brooke Nebel.
Perkins summarized her race: “I knew she (Baumann) had a lot of power in the first mile so I tried to keep her in my side pocket, keep some distance. At a mile and a quarter I tried to throw in some surges and open it up. She was certainly a helpful push (to me)”
The way they were going at it--Perkins in the lead and Baumann holding on for dear life, it looked as if they might both go under 19.
“I just wanted to stay with her for as long as I could,” said Baumann. “I was just waiting for Brooke (Nebel, of Spruce Creek) to catch up. My strategy was to stick with her (Nebel) and pace off her. I didn’t know what was going on at two miles. I usually start dying. I felt pretty good today.”
Good enough for second overall. Her 20:11:90, well off her PR of 19:21.84 at Bale-N-Trail, speaks volumes for the heat that, even for a 5:20 PM start, lingered long enough to subdue all the times. She and Perkins went all out on a course that, with its twists, turns, sand and pace-disrupting moguls had a cumulative effect of inhibiting PRs.
Place, rather than pace, was foremost on Perkins mind.
“Team is more important to me than self. For the past few weeks we were all focused on the places we needed to get for Districts. And after a hard day of (midterm) exams--it’s also homecoming week with its distractions--we still stayed focused.”
Although having just completed the race, she was already looking ahead to the Districts.
“I haven’t quite researched it, but I think the Districts (team configuration) have changed. This weekend I actually went on flrunners.com to see who my competition would be. That (Bartram Trail) is really good course. In an important meet like that we can get good times.”
As previously mentioned, Deland’s Baumann was the only non-Creek finisher up front. In addition to Mandy’s win, they took third through eighth place, and scored 19 points to win the Girls Varsity title. Finishing a second behind Nebel (20:50.66)--and closing rapidly--Raksha Reticular (20:51.69) is poised for a breakout performance. Watch for her at Districts and/or Regionals.
In the Boys Varsity race, Mainland’s Chris Rudloff and Flagler’s Andrew Earle have already broken out, unfortunately both not in a positive sense. In last year’s conference championship at Princess Park--albeit a much more difficult course--Rudloff was 21st in 19:51.42. But this is a new year, and one in which he has been running like Supersoph.
“Last year I logged onto “Smart Coach” from Runner’s World. You put in your PR and how many miles you did before it, the length of your work outs and whether you want to work easy, medium or hard. You press “Go” and up pops your workout schedule.”
With his father’s encouragement, he followed the regimen all summer long.
“I started it at the beginning of the summer and did it for about ten weeks. I would do long runs, short runs, fast intervals , tempo runs and easy runs. I kind of slacked off a few days during my vacation…a week at most.”
Sounds easy enough. With that as a base, he has run sub 17s three times so far this season, including a 16:55.96 to win this race over an experienced and talented field of upper classmen.
“I wanted this bad. I wanted to race my hardest. I know that there were four of us fighting: Alex Frazier, Andrew Earle, Todd Huckaby and me. It turned out to be (just) me. The last time I looked back it was Andrew (Earle, second in 17:08.50) and then (Alex) Frazier (third in 17:24.87).
And after this one? “I want to make it to regionals. I want to excel and make cross country last as long as possible before moving on soccer. I play midfield, my favorite position.”
Andrew Earle, the top Flagler runner, had the misfortune of breaking out in what may have been heat related hives. Normally a regular visitor to the 16s, he seemed unable to challenge Rudloff, despite his being tantalizingly close, until perhaps the last mile. He will, of course, be back before this season is in the record books…as will his younger brother, sophomore Brandon Earle.
“This was probably my best race ever,” he said of his fourth place, 17:36.40 finish. “I forgot how torn up it was with the sand back there in the woods. I tried to stay with Rudloff. I hung with him for about the first mile and then fell off. I don’t feel all that bad because he (was fast enough to) beat my brother.”
With a 17:25 PR on the much faster course of last year’s state meet, his finish time here may be a preview of a spectacular District race on November 3rd.
Not far back, in 7th place, was sophomore Andrew Epifanio. Leading his Deland team to a third place finish, he was the third sophomore who finished in the top ten. The three--Rudloff, Earle and Epifanio--finished in the same order in the October 3rd 5 Star Freshman-Sophomore Meet. As the upperclassmen graduate this year and next, the three will move up to more and more spectacular races, and perhaps a showdown for the 2009 conference title.
With top performances by Alex Frazier (third in 17:24.87), Joseph Elsakr (fifth in 17:37.56) and Ryan Gaines (sixth in 17:47.66), Spruce Creek scored a humble, but effective 42 points to end Flagler’s six year string of conference titles. Does it herald the end of an era? Only time (and future stars) will tell.
In the JV races the winner was…Spruce Creek. For the girls, Brenna Mathis (22:50.07) led a 15 point shutout of the conference. In addition their girls also took ninth, and 12th through 19th place. So it might be argued that they actually took the first two spots in the JV team championship.
Mark Poulson (19:14.76), Johnson Kung (19:33.84), Jacob Parker (19:39.97) and Kyle Hanabass (19:42.62) took the first four places in the Boys JV race and with Jayce Hill’s eighth (19:50.56) scored the win with a spectacular 18 points.
BJV-97; GJV-68; BV-56; GV-56 Total finishers: 277
Footnotes: Although my son got a pretty good gash on his forearm as a result of contact with another runner, he felt far worse for the young man who ran into him. Apparently the latter didn’t see a 30” sprinkler head protruding from the grass somewhere in the hinterlands of Sperling Park’s course. After a full frontal collision, he recoiled--in great personal anguish--and inadvertently contacted my son, who was looking on in incredulity. The secondary victim rebounded into a metal sign, resulting in a numbness that I’m sure the primary victim wished he could experience at that juncture. We sincerely hope that the young man who ran into the sprinkler is okay….We are very glad to see that Tony Tussing has returned to the running scene. Out last year because of heart problems, he was missed by everyone whose lives he touches as a stern, but caring official. I’d also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Tony on his award as the 2006 FHSAA Girls Track Official of the Year. As I understand it, he is only the third Florida official to receive this very, very prestigious award.