FRIDAY JV GIRLS BLUE
They kept coming and coming and coming! It was a seemingly-never ending line of girls from Pearl River, New York. Their 1-7 sweep was only interupted by a lone girl from Episcopal (Delaney Rickey). The Pearl River girls scored just 16 points with a team average of 21:21!
Senior Tara Clinton was first for the Pirates with a time of 20:46, followed closely by Katelyn Garvey (20:59) and the rest of her shipmates.
Episcopal was the first Florida team in second place with 64 points and a 22:50 team average.
FRIDAY JV BOYS BLUE
Reinel Licea, who is currently in between teams having ran for Columbus last year and now attending Ferguson, ran unattached and way out front to win the JV boys race with a time of 17:20.
Lyman High School took the team title fairly easily with 52 points and a 19:15 team average. American Heritage (Georgia) edged out Wiregrass Ranch 85-87. Heritage had a great top three going 2-3-5.
SMALL SCHOOL GIRLS
It wasn't quite a repeat of the JV race, but it was pretty close! Pearl River, New York dominated again... this time scoring 27 points and a remarkable 19:27. It would have been really interesting to see them in the Race of Champions had they opted to race on Saturday instead of Friday.
Kerry Guerin lead the way for Pearl River in 18:57, with the rest of the top five goign 19:19, 19:23, 19:40, and 19:47.
Episcopal finished in distant second place with 112 points and averaged 20:37. Now to their defense, they were not running at full strength. Mariah Loop is currently injured with a "stress reaction" and Katie Traylor was under the weather and it was questionable if she was even going to run. So it would have been a lot more intersting, but let's face it the win would have still belonged to Pearl River easily.
Lincoln Park--who could not compete in Race of Champions because of other obligations of multiple runners on Satruday--looked really good with a 20:39 team average and 133 points. That got them by Tappan Zee, New York by five points. Lake Highland Prep was running without their top two (will run tomorrow) and still finished in a respectable 5th place with a 20:52 team average and 150 points. Finally Shorecrest Prep used pack power with a fantastic 30 second 1-5 split to finish in 6th.
SMALL SCHOOL BOYS
My hat's off to Frostproof! They love the race so much that they decided that they wanted to come and run even though they are putting on their schools 5K fundraiser tomorrow. And for their dedication to flrunners.com they took home two medals including Brandon Kempton's win with a time of 16:53. Justin Weatherspoon of Palmer Trinity was second in 16:57.
Coach howard and Coach Loth, my good friends at Wiregrass Ranch have been doing a great job. The school is still new, but they are quickly building it into a force. And it paid off tonight as they beat out local rival Nature Coast Tech (also and up and comer) 73 to 82. The schools were virtually dead even through four, but Tyler Mattera (Wiregrass #5) put them ahead for the 9 point win finishing in 34th.
Wiregrass was lead by Ryan Pulsifer (third place) in 16:58 and John Davis (seventh) in 17:11. Nature Coast for its part placed 3 in the top ten: Matt Lambert (5th, 17:01), Bruce Federico (6th, 17:09), and Tyler Harrison (10th, 17:31).
Frostproof (148), Lincoln Park (168), and Lake Highland (189) rounded out the top five.
LARGE SCHOOL GIRLS
The Lyman girls placed their top five in the top twenty to score 57 points and win big with a 20:58 team average. Juniors Ruth Ashley (2nd, 20:07) and Ashley Breen (7th, 20:40) lead the way for the Greyhounds as usual.
Lauren Lundberg of Lake Mary (transfer from Lake Highland) took home the large school title with a new PR time of 19:41, just off of her PR from last year and a new best for this season. Seniors Lundberg and Victoria McIntyre (3rd, 20:19) formed a great 1-2 punch for Lake Mary that helped them to a 4th place team finish.
Gaither and Rockledge finished in 2nd (110) and 3rd (125), respectively.
LARGE SCHOOL BOYS
Lyman's boys had similar luck as their girls, completing the large school team sweep by placing their top five in the top twenty as well with a team average of 17:06 and just 51 points. They would have been good company for the ROC tomorrow, but had to race Friday due to scheduling conflicts.
Home team Astronaut High School, racing up in the large school instead of the small school, had an absolutely breakthrough race. The home crowd went crazy! They scored 89 points and took home the runner-up trophy with a 17:31 team average.
Martin County (112, 17:42), Okeechobee (163, 17:59), and Lake Mary (170, 18:00) rounded out the top five.
Individually, it was a heck of a battle between Cypress Lake's Trent Craig and Will Bridges. I wish I could say that I got to watch this one, but I can't wait to review the tape! Craig nudged out Bridges by just .21 of a second! They blew the doors off with times of 16:13.06 and 16:13.27--the large school race isn't supposed to be that fast! Great job!
Sean Rynning of Lyman also put up a great time of 16:30, closed to a PR for him. Omar Ocampo (Lake Region), Diego Blanton (Lake Mary), and Seth Rosonina (Astronaut) all had huge personal bests as well--16:45, 16:46, and 16:53, respectively.
COLLEGE WOMEN
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COLLEGE MEN
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