Well, it’s November--that time of year when you pack a change of clothes, pick up a coffee cake from Thelma’s Bakery, and take that long, long drive to visit those distant cousins that you’ve been reading about in Fl-runners. The District of Death meets the District of Distance. Take Niceville, for example. Look for it on a map, and you’ll find it in the lower left corner of the page, in a little box, about halfway between the corners of Alabama and Georgia. (One has to wonder how often they cross the state line on their long training runs.) According to available Plate Tectonics models, that part of the panhandle will some day swivel around, roughly parallel to the Chattahoochee, and end up as a suburb of Dothan, Alabama. So how is it that Niceville and DeLand are in the same district, anyway?
GIRLS VARSITY
Sperling Sports Complex is a wonderful place for a cross country course…for up to about ten teams. Put twice that many (as many as 18 for this meet), and it starts to take on certain characteristics that bring the Daytona 500 to mind. Was that Danica Patrick trading skin with Katy Rozar?
“Katy Rozar fell at the start,” explained Mandy Perkins of Spruce Creek. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but she couldn’t run after that and Heather Garrow had to run for her. She came out of the crowd, but she was all ready and ran a PR (21:51; 7th for SC and 53rd overall).”
The second start, however, forced Mandy to alter her race strategy.
“I was kind of mad. After the gun went off the second time, I thought ‘Now everyone is going to know that I was going to throw in a surge at the start,’ so I decided to relax a little. I think I only really started opening it up in the third mile.”
With District powerhouses Bartram Trail and Lyman in the race, however, “relax” might be interpreted more in a figurative sense. For most of the race, Perkins was allowed little “breathing room.” In addition to competing with a pretty noticeable cold, BT’s Callie Cooper, Alaina Perez and Melanie Novack, any of whom could be a serious threat to Perkins’ bid as District Champion, were hot on her heels. The latter three, respectively, have PRs of 18:48, 18:52, and 18:53, and along with Perkins went sub-six in the first mile.
Melanie Novack, who outpaced Perkins on her Bartram Trail home course for the District title last year--a race, incidentally, that had six of the same top ten finishers--was not distracted by Perkins’ start.
“We always knew she was going to go out fast,” said Novak, “but we thought we could get her.”
Melanie added, “We went out and just focused on the team’s goal. We wanted to accomplish our individual goals, but as a team.”
Alaina Perez added, “We run better as a team, than as individuals.”
“We didn’t really have a goal as far as times go; we were looking for place,” said senior Callie Cooper. “Everyone ran solid races today; they pulled together. Allison Gubitz (junior, 16th overall, and fourth for the Bears, in 20:05) ran her second best time ever today.”
“You don’t win states with PRs. Overall, it (today’s goal) was to win the team race. We still have two weeks of hard racing to go. States; that is the goal. One down, two to go.”
When the finish line sorted out goals, places, and times, it was Perkins (first in 18:38, just nine ticks off her 18:29 best), Cooper (19:14), Hagerty’s Shannon Compher third (19:23), Perez (19:28), Novack (19:31), Niceville’s Morgan Keel in sixth (19:40), Lauren Lundberg of Lake Mary in seventh (19:42) and Spruce Creek’s Brooke Nebel eighth in 19:45.
Nebel, a senior, ran an exceptional last race on a course that has been blessed by her extraordinary athletic talents for four years. She ran right with the most talented female runners in northern Florida. And third for Spruce Creek was freshman Zoe Volenec, in 20:44.
In 2009, she will have to step up and try to fill the shoes of a long string of outstanding Spruce Creek team leaders.
“I know that this is going to be the expectation, and I hope to live up to it. It was nice to have Mandy and Brooke to set goals for me, and I hope to meet them,” said Volenec after the race.
TEAM RESULTS: Like Wall Street as of late, it was a “Bear Market,” and three Bartram runners in the top five were too much for Lyman to overcome, although they never stopped trying. Bartram (2-4-5-15-26-29-43) won with 52 points, Lyman (8-9-14-16-34-47-53) had 81 and Spruce Creek (1-7-27-33-44-46-50) 112. 110 runners competed for 15 (full) teams.
BOYS VARSITY
As alluded to earlier, Niceville had a pretty long trip to Deland, and it follows that it would have been just as long--although seemingly longer--on their return had they not accomplished what they set out to do. And so it was that the runners in the white shirts with a big red N were quite emphatic in their placement among the 121 finishers. Most noticeable was their number one (senior Christian Ritacco, second overall in 16:05) and numbers three and four (juniors Michael Cooper and Robert Burnett, 18th and 19th in 17:07 and 17:10, respectively) finishers. These three formed the keystone in their team’s win.
The members of Mandarin--which is located on the opposite end of northern Florida from Niceville--were each quite color conscious during the race, and did the best they could to collect as many non-green shirts behind them as they could. Just call them “the green ‘pack-men.’”
Junior Matt Duncan (third team, 21st overall in 17:11): “We really thought that Bartram Trail was going to be our closest rival.”
Senior Drew Rowland (fourth team, 22nd overall in 17:13): “Niceville came out of nowhere.”
Sophomore Bryan Hart (seventh team, 64th overall in 18:20): “To me, anytime you see multiple jerseys ahead, you want to break up that pack; go against them. It doesn’t change your plan.”
Garcia (winner in 16:00): “I don’t think that that changes the race. You’re still going for position.”
Drew: “When push comes to shove, you’re still trying to pass him.”
Senior Mike Walker (fifth team, 32nd in 17:24): “You have to run the race you’re given; pass someone left, or right.”
Sophomore Jeremy Wegener (sixth team, 36th overall in 17:24): “You’re always running position. You see a jersey, and you try to pass him. Six jerseys is six points.”
Senior Vitaliy Morgan (second team, 15th overall in 16:58): “We ran the best race we could and Niceville came out on top.”
But so did Garcia: “I was in the first lead pack with Bartram Trail’s Chris Dender (third in 16:12), Eric Ochoa (16:17) and Niceville’s Christian Ritacco. It was that pack the whole race. We ran close to 5 minutes, and then a 10:20 two mile.
“During the race, I let the lead pack do the work and I sit back. My race really starts with a mile to go. I made my move with right around one mile to go.”
Flagler Palm Coast’s Willie Williams made his on October 11th, at the Ridgeview Invitational, where the junior ran a 17:18. Next came 16:58 at the Little Everglades Pre-State Meet, 16:44 at the 5 Star Conference Championship (on this same course), and most recently 16:18 (good for fifth overall) at this District 1-4A race.
Remember, this is Willie’s first season of cross country. Eleven weeks on “Doc Halliday’s Self-improvement Regimen (patent-pending),” and he was in contention for a District Championship.
According to both a scatter plot and slope analysis of his progress, his projected time for his next two meets are 16:03 and 15:48. By the end of next year, he should be running in the 12s. (Only kidding, but hey, you do the math.)
Willie: “I just wanted to break 16:30 today.”
TEAM RESULTS: The team with a feel-good name (Niceville) won with 85 points (2-8-18-19-38-44-48), followed by two citrus fruits--Mandarin (1-15-21-22-32-36-64 for 91) and Lyman (6-14-25-33-41-75-80 for the 119)--and a school named for a man who studied them (Bartram Trail: 3-4-29-43-82-101 for 161). 121 runners competed for 18 teams.
FOOTNOTES: This was the third flawless meet this year at Sperling Sports Complex, thanks to the combined efforts of Jim and Vicky Lowenstein, coaches Dale Papineau and Darlene Daniels, the assistance of Willie Calloway, Stephanie Epifanio, Ross Geiger, and Mrs. Bautista (finish line), Patty Rickels (results), Bob and Mary LaPlante (security), and a host of Deland parents who made it a real “team effort.”