A pair of underclassmen distance stars in Creekside freshman Alyson Johnson and Berkeley Prep sophomore Liam Jordan were the big winners of the night on Thursday at the Bolles Mile Showcase in Jacksonville.
Creekside's Alyson Johnson broke 5 minutes for 1600 meters for the first time at the Florida Relays, but broke 5 for both the mile and 1600 on Thursday night at the Bolles Mile Showcase with a 4:57.73 personal best victory in the fast section of the girls full mile while recorded at 4:56 for 1600 meters en route.
The Florida indoor mile state champion Johnson continues to impress this spring and will be one of the state title contenders in 4A for the 1600 next month.
Rounding out the top 3 in the race and dipping under 5:10 was Bolles junior Leila Bata with a personal best of 5:07.07 to finish as a runner-up on her home track and Bishop Verot sophomore MacKenzie De Lisle making the trip all the way up from Fort Myers for third place in 5:08.97.
It was a swarm of girls behind them with a half dozen coming cross the finish line within a two second gap with Ella Mickler of Bolles, Daisy Ross of Ponte Vedra, Mary Pace-Balzan of Nease, Kylie Thomas of Bishop Verot, Hannah Kowkabany of Episcopal, and Elizabeth Csikai all ranging from 5:10 to 5:13 inside the top 10 places.
In the boys mile seeded section, the Berkeley Prep duo of Kirin Karver and Liam Jordan set the pace early on leading the field thru the first lap in 66-67 seconds with Karver leading Jordan and Daniel deMonte of Bolles out. Jordan took over leading at the half mile mark splitting 2:12.
When the pace slowed on the third lap, Davis Brown of Ponte Vedra seized the lead into the bell as the leaders hit 3:18 with 400 meters to go.
The tenth grader Jordan, who has been on a tear this spring including running recent PR's of 9:09 in the 3200 at the FSU Relays and 1:56 in the 800 at the Florida Relays had Creekside senior and Virginia Commonwealth University commit Hudson Finocchio attack the final 300 meters of the race with him.
Finocchio ended up breaking 4:20 for the first time with a significant PR of 4:19.71 for the mile (4:18 for 1600 meters) after having a previous best of 4:27 from the Bob Hayes Invitational.
Jordan was slightly faster in his closing kick to hold off Finocchio in second place with a 4:19.00 victory, which converts close to his 1600 meter PR of 4:17 from the FSU Relays.
The Bolles senior duo of deMonte (3rd, 4:23) and Matthew Thomas (4th, 4:24) had strong performances in one of their final races on their home track.
Bolles, Creekside, and nearly Ponte Vedra had 3 under 4:30 in the race showing off each of their program's depth.