Liam Jordan of Berkeley Prep accomplished a rare feat on Saturday at the FLYRA Middle School State Championships. The eighth-grade distance runner won all three of his races at IMG Academy this weekend starting with the 3000 meter run in 9:15, the 1500 meter run as his second title in 4:15, and closing out his day with a 2:02 PR victory in the 800 meter run on tired legs.
It was not the first FLYRA title for Jordan either as he won the FLYRA Middle School cross country state title this past October as well. Jordan has a great training partner and teammate in another eighth-grader in Storm Weber, who was a runner-up behind him in the cross country state meet as well as Saturday in the 1500 meter race.
Each race saw a worthy challenger for Jordan to have to deal with and eventually pass at the end between Will Neeld (9:18) of Circle Christian School in the 3K, Joshua Gammage (4:17) of Dillard High in the 1500, and Joseph Socarras (2:03) of South Dade Express in the 800. In each race, Jordan relied on his kick to put the hammer down for the victories. His last race and win in the 800 might have been his best kick of them all despite racing on tired legs making up a huge difference on Socarras in the final 100 meters.
His high school season at Berkeley Prep did not finish exactly as he wanted as was hoping to sneak thru as one of the at-large qualifiers by time from his regional meet in the 3200, but his fourth-place finishing time of 10:09 was not fast enough to qualify for the FHSAA State Track Finals in 2A after running a 9:55 PR earlier in the season.
Jordan took an easy week of training after his regional meet before focusing on the post-season and his planned triple at the FLYRA State Championships. He tuned up for this meet running a 4:35 mile PR at the first Golden South Series meet at Dunbar High School last weekend.
He's shutting it down for two weeks of no running in a well-deserved rest from his trifecta of titles at the FLYRA State Championships. The cross country season looks very promising for the Berkeley Prep squad, who finished third in last year's 2A state race and return virtually all of their top runners including Ethan Lipham and Kirin Karver coupled with their two rising freshman stars in Jordan and Weber.
Jordan could use his FLYRA Champs performances as a springboard to a cross country season to help his squad's cause and drop his 5K time well into the 16-minute range after just breaking 17 minutes last fall.
