Photo provided by Mike Hill of Elite Timing
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History was made on Saturday at the Hagerty Invitational and it certainly was not planned. But most of history is a long list of unexpected events.
There was no doubt that eventually, Caroline Wells of Winter Springs would run the fastest 5K performance ever recorded in Florida high school cross country history after running a state record 5K of 16:16 on the track this past summer at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon at The Outdoor Nationals.
But the intention was not to chase after topping the shared 16:41 fastest Florida girls cross country 5K performances posted by the likes of Tatum David and Ashley Brasovan in the past at the Hagerty Invitational on Saturday.
In only her second race of the 2021 season, Wells was planning on running a controlled and measured race similar to her 17:53 opening win at the Astronaut Invitational in Titusville two weeks ago. With the plan of competing into early December in hopefully qualifying to compete at Foot Locker Nationals in San Diego, Wells does not want to go to the well with too many all-out races prior.
Turns out that Wells is simply too fast, fit, and talented to slow down when presented with a course such as the Hagerty High School home course which is a 3 loop course on their school grounds without a hill on it and just a few tight turns to slow down runners and throw off rhythm or pace.
When Wells powered across the finish line winning by over 2 minutes and 23 seconds, the normal straight face Wells with a business-like demeanor turned straight to big smiles when she saw the 16:40 pop up on the across the Elite Timing running clock board. The fastest 5K time ever run by a Florida high school girls distance runner from the recent Stanford University commit. The performance is also the fastest 5K time run in the country so far this 2021 season.
Wells also helped lead the Winter Springs girls to the team title as the defending 3A state champions from a year ago seem to be on a much better path to attempt to repeat than they looked two weeks ago finishing fifth at the Astronaut Invitational. After Wells, Winter Springs had three more girls among the top 15 places and under 21 minutes in Naomi Flowers (6th, 19:58), Ella Giambalvo (10th, 20:10), and Grace Mason (13th, 20:41). Wells was actively cheering on her teammates across the line 50 meters ahead of the finish chute.
Karis Guilbeau rounded out the team's top five of scorers to give them a total tally of 50 points. Winter Springs will need to continue to work on their pack moving up though with some formidable squads in their classification including 2 of the state's top 5 ranked squads currently in Osceola and Our Lady of Lourdes Academy.
Their collective efforts were enough to put them ahead of Lake Highland Prep and Flagler Palm Coast both scoring 71 points each and the sixth runner tiebreaker going to Lake Highland Prep to earn runner-up honors.
Astronaut freshman Madison Carr was the first runner to come across the finish line after the long wait after Wells broke the state record. Carr is certainly establishing herself as one of the state's top ninth-graders this fall as she knocked off 43 seconds from her personal and season-best 5K time with a 19:03 runner-up performance at Hagerty High.
Jada Williams of Flagler Palm Coast grabbed third place individually while leading her squad to a third-place showing as well with a time of 19:18, while Lake Brantley sophomore Kayla McCarthy had her best race since her season-opening win at the Mike Gibson Summertime Run with a fourth-place and personal best effort of 19:24.
There might not have been a state record in the varsity boys' race, but a very important and special record was set nonetheless. The school record for the host school Hagerty High was broken on their home course by their own in junior Brayden Seymour.
Seymour got out fast and never looked back power thru the three-loop course to drop 36 seconds off his prior personal and season-best to throw down a fast time of 15:32 in his victory and become Hagerty's fastest cross country runner ever.
His head coach and athletic director at Hagerty High School in Jay Getty is well known as being the high school coach when at Oviedo High prior to Jenny Simpson (Barringer), 3-time Olympian, Olympic bronze medalist, and World champion at 1500 meters. If Seymour keeps this pace up, he may become one of the best high school boys runners that Getty has ever coached.
Seymour actually spent some of his summer training in California and a famous training area for runners in that area at Big Bear Lake with the current top-ranked team in the country at Newbury Park. After a breakthrough sophomore season of outdoor track clocking personal bests of 4:22 in the 1600 and 9:30 in the 3200-meter run, it appears the work done in the preseason has paid off for Seymour to take another leap in performances this fall.
His teammate and another promising young talent for the Hagerty program in sophomore Jonathan Leon took second place in the race with a near sub 16-minute effort with his time of 16:03. Leon now has the third-fastest sophomore 5K time in the state behind only the likes of Patrick Koon of Leon and Joshua Ruiz of Belen Jesuit.
Despite the stout top 2 runners for the Hagerty boys, they did not have enough depth or pack running to overcome the Winter Springs boys who made it a sweep of team titles on Saturday with their girls winning with a team score of 63 points over Hagerty with 69 points and a team average of 17:16. Winter Springs boys had 4 runners in the top 12 places led by Ja'len Blake in fifth place at 16:48 and followed closely behind by teammates Johneleir Rodriguez (7th, 17:01), Valentino Balzano (10th, 17:09), and Alex Steven (12th, 17:21).
After the first two finishers from Hagerty, Orange City University junior Royce Eggert was the next runner across the line in third place with a PR of 16:28. Eggert has had a strong start to his cross country season including already winning two races so far this season at the University Titan Invite and Manowski Family Runmatanzas.