IMG Academy senior Layla Haynes set the new Holloway Park two loop course 5K record with her 18:03 run in the flrunners.com Future Stars of XC Meet on Saturday morning in Lakeland. The sub 2:10 half miler from Barbados, ran over a minute faster than the winning time in the FACA All-Star Senior Meet held over an hour later on the same course.
A total of six girls broke 20 minutes in the race behind Haynes including a group of juniors that might be in next year's FACA All-Star race in Rylan Holmquist of St. Augustine, Avery Latto of Osceola, Catalina Veldwijk of Lecanto, Elle Mehltretter of Osceola, and Olivia Denney of Winter Park.
A duo from Bloomingdale High School in Thomas Schilling and Brandon Witherow went 1-2 together in the high school boys 5K crossing the line together with Schilling at 16:56.11 and Witherow at 16:56.12.
The pair had helped the Bloomingdale squad qualify for the state meet last week and finish 20th out of the field of 32 teams in the 4A. The senior Schilling was the Hillsborough County individual champion this fall, while the sophomore Witherow ran a 5K best of 16:08 at their district meet. Schilling probably could have been a good addition to the West Region squad that ultimately was the deepest region at the FACA All-Star Meet later winning that team competition.
The Hillsborough Harriers running club brought a large group of their runners to compete in the middle school 3K race and were well represented amongst the top finishers including the overall boys and girls race winners.
Seventh grader Landon O'Brien for the Hillsborough Harriers held off eighth grader Bryce Motycka in the battle for top middle school boy in the race with a winning time of 11:17.
Meanwhile, the top girls finisher for the Hillsborough Harriers in Katelin WIlcox beat all the boys in the race except for top two finishers O'Brien and Motyckka to claim first for the girls race with a time of 11:37.