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The best meet of the weekend in the state of Florida will be the Florida Horse Park Invitational in Ocala on Saturday hosted by Dusty Smith and B3R Sports.
Belen Jesuit boys will be heavily favored to repeat as team champions in the boys race, while several girls teams will be in contention for the win including Bolles, Oak Hall, and Sunlake.
Belen Jesuit won last year's Florida Horse Park Invitational with a team score of 56 points including a 84 point buffer ahead of the runner-up team in eventual 2A state champions Bolles. Expect an even lower score and larger margin of victory this weekend for Bolles in Ocala.
After Belen Jesuit, the battle for runner-up team trophy should be between Sunlake, Creekside, Fleming Island, Tampa Jesuit, and Plant.
Leading their squad is Joshua Ruiz, the reigning individual champion from last year's race, when he won in a time of 15:45. He is coming off a season opening 15:16 state leading 5K performance last weekend at the Kowboy Invitational. As witnessed last weekend in Kissimmee when they put 6 runners in the top 6 under 15:50, Belen Jesuit could potentially see their fifth runner finishing ahead of most team's #1 runner on Saturday. Ninth grade phenom Marcelo Mantecon is certainly capable of going 1-2 with his Belen Jesuit teammate Joshua Ruiz even taking into account how strong the rest of the field is with individuals.
Graham Myers of Fleming Island was a third place finisher in last year's race with a time of 15:49 and last spring's 3A state runner-up at 3200 meters is looking to bounce back from his sixth place showing at Cecil Field.
Meanwhile, host school Ocala Vanguard will be have one of the top runners in the front in Clayton Knight who ran a 15:50 PR to start his senior season in a stellar runner-up finish at Cecil Field. Knight was 15th in last year's Florida Horse Park Invitational.
Berkeley Prep junior Liam Jordan was a top 10 finisher in the 2022 Floria Horse Park Invitational and kicked off his season with a 15:56 victory last week at Babe Zaharias Twilight Challenge. Jordan figures to be one of the best runners in the 2A classification this fall after running under 9:10 for 3200 meters as a sophomore this past spring.
Alyson Johnson from Creekside, Elizabeth Williamson from Academy of Holy Names, Annabella Cardona from Braddock, Abigail Williams from Sunlake, and Cheyenne Thomas from Tavares are among the top 5 girls names to watch in the varsity race.
Johnson was one of Florida's top freshmen one year ago including winning the 4A state titles in the 1600 with sub 5 and in the 3200 with sub 11 performances. She opened last week at Cecil Field with a third place 5K PR time of 18:45.
Williamson has been a state champion twice on the track at the 2A level and one of the preseason favorites to win the cross country state title in the classification. Williamson started her junior season with a runner-up 19:49 finish at the Babe Zaharias Twilight Challenge.
Cardona is the top returnee from the 2022 Florida Horse Park Invitational when she finished third with a time of 19:20. She led Braddock last fall to a 4A state runner-up team finish with her fourth place state individual performance.
Abigail Williams is lead runner for one of the state's top performing squads thru the first two weeks of the season in Sunlake High and followed up her victory at the Claw Preseason Classic with a third place season best time of 19:30 at the Kowboy Invitational last week.
Past FLYRA middle school state champion Cheyenne Thomas will have her first of many opportunities this year to test herself against elite high school talent as the Tavares freshmen is more than capable of being a consistent 18 minute performer at 5K after running 10:22 for 3K last fall in middle school.