At last. After nearly three weeks of missed practices and cancelled meets, teams from Brevard and Volusia finally got a chance to race at the 2004 Rockledge Raider Classic. The meet almost had to be cancelled due to hurricane damage at F. Burton Smith Park, but Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High School was gracious enough to allow Rockledge to host the meet at their facility.
The surprise performance of the meet would have to go to Astronaut freshman Devin Spoerle, who fought off Mary Catherine Fleming of Boone to take first place with a time of 20:01. In the girls team competition, Satellite showed that they will be the team to beat in the Cape Coast Conference with an impressive performance. The Scorps placed all five scoring runners in the top 25 and were led by Kaitlyn Shiver's 3rd place finish.
After last week's strong showing at Edgewater, Colonial continued to look like one of the top boys teams in the state by placing five runners in the top 20 and outpacing Boone 45 to 53. The race for individual first place was tightly contested between Alvin Charles of Colonial, Aaron Kindt of Boone and Charles' teammate Alex Wills. The trio were on each other's heels until the last 300 meters when Charles took charge of the race and finished with an impressive time of 15:49 on what is not considered a very fast course.
Samantha O'Hara of Boone won the girls JV race with a time of 22:34 leading her team to a first place finish. Astronaut's Andrew Kramer won the JV race in 18:50, while Palm Bay's boys took the team title.
Twenty two schools and more than 550 athletes participated in this year's race.