The 1A boys race at the state meet had a lot of interesting twists and storylines. Probably none more intriguing than the fact that the race winner in Cambridge Christian senior Braxton Legg not actually being declared as the state champion.
FHSAA rules prohibit someone like Legg, who did not race at the regional meet from being officially recognized as an individual state champion. He was allowed to race in the state meet as am eligible member of a team qualifier in Cambridge Christian. Legg was missing from last week's regional meet due to the fact that he was out of the country in Uruguay competing for Team USA in a triathlon competition, which he happened to earn a silver medalist in as well.
A similar situation happened just two years ago in the 4A girls race at the 2020 FHSAA State Meet when Amber Schulz won the race but was not recognized as the state champion and instead the runner-up finisher was instead after Schulz's missed her regional race due to injury, but her Timber Creek still advanced to the state meet and Schulz was healthy enough to compete the following week.
The race played out with a 4:49 first mile split for the leaders featuring Legg, Oak Hall senior Caden Montini, and Community School of Naples senior Sergi Guzman. Legg started to break away in the second mile and build a four second lead on Montini with a 9:55 split. At that point of the race if Montini held his second place spot then he would actually be the 1A state champion for 2022.
However, last year's state runner-up Jack Dejesus of Circle Christian had other plans as he was able to cover the last 1.1 miles of the race 10 seconds faster than Montini to finish second in the race but earn his first individual state title in a time of 15:48 with Montini crossing the line in third under 16 minutes as well in 15:54.
Crossing the line before both and running the 7th fastest time overall on the day regardless of classification was Cambridge Christian's Braxton Legg crossing the finish line first in a time of 15:37. Despite his name not going into the FHSAA record books nor receiving an All-State medal for his efforts, a great moment later during the awards ceremony was that he was still asked to come up on the podium with other 15 medalists from the 1A boys race.
The Indian Rocks Christian boys came into the meet as the reigning state champions and strong favorites to repeat. They were racing a man down though as one of their varsity runners and son of head coach Bobby Labrant in Charles Labrant was experiencing stomach pains on Thursday and turned out that he needed an emergency appendix removal as well as abdominal hernia.
With the younger Labrant back home recovering well from his surgery, his teammates honored him by performing masterful surgery of their own on the Apalachee Regional Park 5K course in Tallahassee and the competition in the 1A boys race. They opted to not fill his spot with an alternate and instead race with six runners.
After sweating out their first state title in program's history last fall, it was a breeze this year to repeat as Indian Rocks Christian won by nearly a margin of 50 points averaging 16:21 amongst their top 5 runners. Indian Rocks Christian had 3 of their athletes earn All-State honors with top 15 finishes by junior Nicholas Zamora (4th, 16:01), sophomore Blake Young (5th, 16:03), and junior Aidan Griffin (12th, 16:19).
Their remaining top 5 scorers were not far behind and inside the top 25 in junior Jonah Berry (22nd, 16:38) and sophomore Ethan Esposito (23rd, 16:46) for a total team score of 58 points. Without a single senior amongst that group positions Indian Rocks Christian well to go for a three peat in 2023 and projects to be Florida's second best returning cross country team overall behind only 6-time 3A state champions Belen Jesuit.
Another team that battled some adversity and missing some of their varsity runners were the Circle Christian squad who ended up only putting five runners on the start line and had five finishers. Not sure if it was injury, illness or other reasons as they were missing the Parker brothers Aschalew and Sam who were their #6 and #7 runners at the regional meet one week ago.
Thankfully, there was no one missing from the top 5 as they all delivered on race day by finishing and finishing well as otherwise they would not be showing up in the team standings much less on the podium as the runner-up squad. Dejesus led the team's charge winning the 1A state individually with his runner-up race in 15:48, while junior Calvin Jagen earned a pair of medals too with Dejesus with his 13th place run of 16:31 for All-State individual honors.
Teammates and brothers Thomas Neeld (24th, 16:47) and Will Neeld (27th, 16:52) joined them under 17 minutes as the team's #3 and #4 runners, while Landon Pierce closed the door on any other team overtaking them for second place and a spot on the podium with a 44th place effort of 17:16 as the team's fifth finisher for a total team score of 101 points.
After intentionally holding back and treating their regional meet last Saturday in Gainesville as a glorified tempo run, the Circle Christian boys executed a more bold strategy this week with a fast first mile as a group and actually leading Indian Rocks Christian 93 to 109 points at the one mile split mats. Indian Rocks Christian quickly swung the race to their advantage by two miles with a 71 to 89 points lead advantage.
Circle Christian lost some more ground in the final mile on Indian Rocks Christian, but built a huge enough buffer from Cambridge Christian (3rd, 146 pts), 1A Region 2 champions Oak Hall (4th, 178 pts) and 1A Region 1 champions Pensacola Christian (5th, 206 pts) to seriously threaten them for second place in the standings.
It was the highest state meet team finishes ever in their respective program's history for top 5 squads in the Cambridge Christian and Pensacola Christian boys.
South Florida squads and runners were not represented among the top 5 teams or top 5 individuals, but quickly appeared after that including the Southwest Florida Christian Academy boys in sixth place as a squad while 1A Region 4 champion Henry Stark of Palmer Trinity grabbed sixth place in a time of 16:08 and just ahead of Sergi Guzman (7th, 16:11). from Community School of Naples and Southwest Florida Christian's top runner Hayden Tank (8th, 16:12).