State Meet Race Summary

 

Videos by Jason Byrne and Todd Grasley (27 currently, more coming)

 

Photo Album by Jeff Adams (Over 4000 photos uploaded)

 

 

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Bridget Blake of Dr. Phillips did what she came to do.  She went in confident and wasted no time asserting herself as the leader and challenged anyone to come with her.  Only Vanessa Valentine of Melbourne took her up on the dare.  The confidence paid off as she pulled away from Valentine, suffering from the quick pace, during the last mile.  Blake cruised for the win in 17:52.  Valentine faded a bit, but fought off the hard charging Emily Ahrens of Vero Beach to maintain second place in 18:23 to Ahren's 18:24.

 

Meanwhile, it was Plant's girls who got the job done and took on favored Lourdes in a classic battle.  Funny enough, Plant performed almost identically to the virtual meet executing well and taking advantage of a less than ideal day for Lourdes.  Coach Harrison and Plant earned their record 9th state championship and ending an eight year dry spell: 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2010.

 

 

 

 

 

The Fluehr Twins lead 1A Girls Race

Photo by Randy Lefko/Jacksonville.com

 

The girls race went pretty much exactly as expected.  Pretty much.  It was the Fluehr twins way out front from the beginning, followed by Julie Wollrath and Teresa Ristow of Holy Trinity, and Brittney Ollinger of Oak Hall.  The only odd thing is when the winner was announced:  instead of Kathryn, it was Erika with the winning time of 17:08!  Kathryn came less than 15 seconds later with the runner-up time of 17:22.

 

What a shocker!  Erika's season went off to a slow start and she suffered a rare defeat at flrunners as a result.  So it's pretty awesome to see her come back and win with a blazing time of 17:08--a new PR for her.  And it's gotta be great to see her take one from her sister for once.  Great job to both girls!

 

Wollrath's time of 17:47 was 17 seconds better than her teammate, and the two helped their team to a dominant victory with 50 points by placing six in the top 20 (7th was 28th) and a team average of 18:48.  Oak Hall had a nice showing 101 points and 19:41 average for second.

 

 

Ryan Pickering of John I. Leonard OWNED this race.  From the gun he let it be known that he was going to set the pace, which went out a little conservatively around 4:50.  A good-sized pack went with him, lead by Phil Duncan.  Where was Armando del Valle?  He sat back in the pack, hanging on.  Everyone wondered when he might make his move--this was the strategy many expected from him to sit back, keep Pickering close, and then drop the hammer.  The hammer never came... he held on for 8th place in 15:27.

 

This was the fastest race of the day, with a fantastic pack all the way past the two mile mark and only really gaining separation after they exited the infield.  Pickering set what was, for a short period of time, a meet and course record time of 15:03.01 and pulled Phil Duncan along for a second place 15:13.  Eduardo Garcia looked very strong the last mile and earned a new PR of 15:16, with JL Hines (15:19), Max Del Monte (15:22), Chase Shutton (15:23), and Andres Arroyo (15:26) in tow.

 

Del Valle said afterwards that he felt flat.  And his Columbus team waited... and waited... and waited for the final word if they had managed to hold off Dr. Phillips for the team title.  Word finally came, after what must have seemed like an eternity, that they had tied with DP at 103 points but the depth won out for them with their sixth man making the difference.  Coach Fleitas said afterwards that he accepts the blame for the close call.

 

The team, nationally ranked and considered heavy favorites going in, was already looking past this week and toward NXN Southeast next week.  They tapered not a bit and put in 50 miles this week.  The team is overall a bit battered, Del Valle with a hip issue and another runner with a potential stress fracture in his foot.  All in all they were relieved to come away with the title and hoping to have some positive things happen as they extend their season one and possibly two more weeks.

 

 

Holy Trinity's David Kilgore got it done.  He ran the show and proved his status as pre-race favorte was legitimate, with a time fo 15:29.  Griffin Jaworski and Franklin Chase of Trinity Prep came thundering in with second and third (15:37 and 15:41), and--after Patrick Swain came across in 4th palce 15:44--the team battle was on like Donkey Kong!

 

Holy Trinity roared back taking 5th and 6th (Joe Castagnaro, Daniel Moore) and then Trinity Prep answered with 7th and 8th place (Ryan Gosse, Daniel Salas).  So taking out the individuals, they are all tied up through 3 (12 points), Trinity Prep pulls ahead by 1 through 4 (21-20), and then Trinity Prep makes it official when they cross #5, Evan Rosenberg at 12th place (10th by team scoring) in 16:12.  Trinity Prep 30 (15:53 average), Holy Trinity 35 (16:01 average).

 

 

What. A. Battle. It was everything we hoped it would be with the top five--arguably the most competitive class in the state--pushing at a fast pace, with no one wanting to give: Kacy Smith, Shelby Davidson, Stephanie Schappert, Rebecca Chandler, and Nicole Carpio.  Carpio was the first to fold.  It got too hot for her around the two mile mark and she let go of the leaders.  And then there were four.

 

Around the turn in the infield they stuck together strong.  After some surges thrown in there they finally dropped another as they exited the infield, with Chandler falling off the pace.  Approaching the final turn, Stephanie Schappert made a move and took the lead.  Davidson and Smith followed.  Coming around toward the final straight away Schappert had built a decent lead and headed up the hill, with another state championship in her sight.  With about 100 meters to go, you could see something click in Kacy Smith.  She said after the race that she just decided at that point that after working so hard for 17 minutes that it would be ridiculous if she couldn't find the strength for another 30 seconds.  So she found another gear that no one--including herself was sure she even had.

 

She kicked hard up the final 100 meters of the hill and toward the finish, finally passing a fading Schappert with about 20 meters to go.  Schappert's form started to break down and she collapsed as Smith crossed the line with her first state title in 17:47.  Davidson came blowing by the down Schappert to finish runner-up 17:52.  Stephanie eventually struggled to her feat, before falling again, grabbing the fence at one point, and walking the rest of the 15 meters or so across the finish line and holding on to third in 18:08.  Chandler and then Carpio came next in 18:25 and 18:33.

 

The team battle went right as expected Smith's Estero taking care of business by placnig six in the top twenty and secoring 43 points, 95 points better than Chandler's Bolles and 97 better than Davidson's Cocoa Beach.  Estero's team average was 18:47.  To say they were thrilled with the team and individual titles would be an understatement.  But they still looked toward seeing if their boys could double.

 

I looked for Kacy after the race for an interview, but pretty much as soon as the race was over she was off to find some Mountain Dew and french fries (as if she needs the caffeine).  Thankfully she found the Dew and I found her (and will post it later)... she had not, however, yet located any french fries.  Hopefully she got that final wish granted after the awards ceremony.

 

 

Sarah Spann!  If there was really one individual shocker of the day, this was it.  Going into the race Spann was certainly projected to be a top ten finisher, but no one really put her in the discussion for the title... or for the most part even top five.  The favorites entering the race were Lily Williams, Carly Thomas, Darroneisha Lott, and Grace VanDeGrift.

 

Spann took no time at all to let everyone know she was going to push the pace, but that is not exactly out of the ordinary for the Ft. Myers senior who has been known to take races out strong the first 800.  But what was different this time around was that she did not come back to the pack!  Grace VanDeGrift gave chase, as did Olivia Ortiz early, while Williams, Thomas, and Lott took it out more patiently.  By about the half way point, Spann had a big lead with VanDeGrift trying to hang on, with the chase pack some distance behind Grace.

 

The pace eventually got to VanDeGrift and she was swallowed by the pack around two miles.  Miss Sarah Spann though was not, looking strong even to the finish and kicking with all her might and winning the state championship.  Dressed all in white, she flew up the final hill and ended up with a huge PR of 17:50.  Behind her was a three pack of girls battling it out, with Lily Williams barely holding on the runner-up position as Darroneshia Lott zoomed past Carly Thomas in the last couple of meters or so for third.  They all got under 18... 17:58.65, 17:58.92, 17:59.53.

 

While Lily and Carly didn't quite get the 1-2 finish they had at the state meet last season, they did get perhaps even sweeter redemption.  The team mustered everything they had and and defeated arch-rival Lakewood Ranch, beating them handily by winning at the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th positions and team scoring 59 to 82 and 18:52 to 19:08 average.

 

 

Bert Irigoyen, the junior from Ransom Everglades, sailed to first place.  He lead this thing basically gun to tape.  He had company for about the first mile with a large chase pack behind him, but coming up the hill for the second time he started to get a little sunlight.  By the two mile mark he was really all alone and rolled to the finish, ending in 15:41 with 16 seconds of padding over second place Tim Hendricks of North Broward Prep

 

Not unexpectedly, the Estero boys earned the state championship with 87 points to Steinbrenner's 165.  Estero was lead by Aaron Rojas (16:07) and had a 16:35 team average.  It was the third state title of the day for Estero... after the girls individual/team sweep.  Nice feeling for the D-D-D Crew.  Steinbrenner's runner-up position was rather impressive given that the school is only in its second year, so that program is definitely one to watch.

 

 

As scripted, Jimmy Clark of Creekside controlled the race completely.  He lead from start to finish and ended Ryan Pickering's two hour reign as course and meet record holder.  Clark finished as the only runner ever on the course to break 15 minutes, with a winning time of 14:58.87.

 

Elliot Clemente of Belen Jesuit was in second place and 15:25 and Tyler Cardillo was third in 15:38.  It is even more remarkable that Jimmy ran his record breaking time during the hottest race of the day--very toasty, especially compared to the cool (perfect?) weather for the early races.  Perhaps this accounted for the times in this race, which were quite a bit slower than anticipated... actually many of the times in general (across the board) were slower than expected with a few notable exceptions, of course.

 

Team wise, Charlotte struggled and Belen did anything but... making for a less interesting than expected team battle.  Belen won out easily by placing their top five in the top twenty and scoring 50 points to Charlotte's 92.... 16:00 team average to 16:15.  Leon had a pretty good day, missing their fifth runner and still managing to finish in third place with 134 points and a 16:25 average.