Elite Girls
The race was rather undramatic with Kathryn Fluehr of Community School of Naples, followed by her sister Erika, leading literally the entire race. By the time they reached the grandstands for the first time (about 400 meters into the race) Kathryn had already begun to get a few steps of separation from the pack.
Kathryn lead through the mile mark in around 5:27 with about a 12 second lead. Shelby Hayes of Winter Park fought to keep Erika Fluehr in sight through 1.5 miles with the rest of the pack hanging on about 20 meters back behind that included the pack from Chiles lead by Lily Williams.
The leaders continued to space out with Kathryn extending her lead to a huge margin by the time she went through two miles in 11:12. Never letting up, Fluehr crossed the finish in 11:16.23 about 30 seconds ahead of Erika (17:44.11). Hayes was the first non-Fluehr finisher whose 18:10.05 time put her with all alone also.
Lily Williams of Chiles was the fourth place finisher, leading the great Chiles charge. Williams ran an 18:24. She was followed by teammates Carly Thomas (6th 18:45), Rachel Givens (8th 18:55), Kendall Andrews (10th 19:04), and Jodie McGuff (16th 19:18). Collectively, that gave Chiles an 18:55 team average with 44 points. Hayes and her girls from Winter Park were 66 points back (110) with a 19:17 team average. Ft. Myers' top two of Katie Russo and Sarah Spann had another impressive showing also: 5th 18:42 and 7th 18:52, respectively.
Elite Boys
Stacked, disciplined, and tactical are good adjectives to use here. The wind gusts started to pick up for the boys race and the hightly talented pack stuck together tightly. While no one really wanted to take the early initiative, Armando Del Valle lead early from about 400 meters in.
There was little separation between the leaders and the rest of the pack, but the headwind in the backstretch did enough to thin them out just enough to define the leaders as Armando Del Valle, Colin Barker, Jimmy Clark, Mark Parrish. Matt Mizereck, Michael Wallace, and Novian Middleton. That lead pack went through the mile in a very conservative 4:56.
Just after the mile mark Jimmy Clark made a move to the lead and Mark Parrish moved into second place. Columbus looked impressive leading the team battle through the first half of the race. Erick Montoya took the lead from Jimmy Clark entering the backstretch for the second time. And there were a series of lead changes in the middle of the race with the pack remaining very tight up front and a conservative pace the entire time.
Armando Del Valle lead going into the infield, followed by Erick Montoya, Matt Mizereck, Mark Parrish, Colin Barker, Jimmy Clark, Michael Wallace, and a host of others. Between all of the lead changes, the second mile pace had accelerated significantly going through two miles at 9:44 (4:48 split).
The tactical individual race was clearly taking shape with the top seven runners clearly defined coming out of the in field toward the finish. Erick Montoya took back the lead with Colin Barker and Jimmy Clark falling behind. Around the final turn Mark Parrish started to fall off pace slightly making it a 6-man race. Barker took the lead around the turn with a big surge, but he did not break the pack.
Around the turn Jimmy Clark decided to take the initiative and charged strong with Barker and Montoya responding. Mizereck fell back calmly into the pack not looking like he would try to keep up with the leaders' surge. Barker and Clark traded leads a few times headed back by the start line.
Headed up the final stretch Clark started to put in another gear and charged the hill hard. Barker and Montoya responded and Mizereck settled into fourth place. Clark got a little breathing room for the first time over Barker. The race looked like it could be over, but then half way up the hill Mizereck, the sleeping giant, had awoken. Around Montoya and Barker he came and closed the gap to Clark. Looking fresh, disciplined, and strong Mizereck took over with 150 meters go to and just accelerated through to the finish.
Three seconds separated Mizereck and Clark as they crossed the timing mats: 15:20.44 to 15:23.75. What a smart and patient race by Matt Mizereck, showing his confidence and fitness! And what a bold race by Clark and all of the others who traded off for the lead throughout! Montoya held on for third over Barker, 15:26.44 and 15:28.21. The early leader, Del Valle, maybe paid the price for breaking the tough headwind early fading slightly to 15:30.64 over Michael Wallace 15:30.89 and Mark Parrish 15:42.94.
In the background of this great individual battle was the battle for the claim to being Florida's top boys team. Hand counting showed Columbus leading early on and Dr. Phillips evening it out by two miles. In the end, DP showed that strong pack racing is where it's at with Novian Middleton and Alex Mund going 8-9 (15:53) and Daniel Millay, Sean White, and Josh Boggs hitting 21-25-26 (16:10, 16:13, 16:14) to score 87 points and 16:05 team average to beat out Columbus. Lead by Armando Del Valle, Columbus had a slightly better team average time with 16:00, but was two points back where it counted with 89 points. What a classic team battle!
Small School Girls
Jana Stolting of Maclay had some company early on in the race, being joined by a gutsy Emily Edwards of Canterbury. Edwards actually took the lead for a during the first mile. The Canterbury 8th grader lead through the mile with Stolting on her heels through the mile mark in 5:48.
Shortly after that point, Stolting had enough of following and made a strong move into the lead. By a mile and a half Stolting had accelerated and extended her lead to about 10 seconds. Stolting's teammate Stefanie Kurgat sat in third at the half way point, slowly gaining ground on Edwards.
Stolting picked up the clip and the middle mile the fastest, headed through two miles in 11:15--just off of Kathryn Fluehr's pace earlier in the morning through that point! That made her second mile a 5:27 split. Edwards held on two second place through the two mile mark, but had Kurgat as her shadow--they were 22 seconds behind Stolting by that point.
Kurgat had taken over coming out of the infield, while her teammate continued to extend her lead up front. Brittany Olinger from Oak Hall made a strong charge late in the race and close to Kurgat and Edwards.
All alone, Stolting fell off Fluehr's pace the last mile-point-one and finished in 17:51. Kurgat was second in 18:27, Edwards third in 18:46, and Olinger fourth in 18:52. The 1-2 showing of Stolting-Kurgat gave Maclay enough padding to beat out Estero, despite Estero's excellent looking pack of 9-11-16-17-23-(24) that gave them 76 points. For its part, Maclay placed four in the top ten and took the title with 59 points and a 19:28 team average.
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