Key West XCursion Recap: Loder and Allen Lead Pirates to Treasure

The Key West Golf Course is a beautiful venue for cross country that unfortunately most teams have never ventured to travel to. Matanzas Senior Hannah Loder came into this tune up for next week’s Flrunners 13 as one of the top runners in class 3A, and proved it amongst a handful of five teams that dared to take the course with the title of “The Gauntlet”. Loder is enjoying a great senior year with two wins in her first two races, and a season best time of 19:26.70 which is almost two full minutes faster than last year at the same time. From the blowing of the Conch Horn to start the race Hannah got out quickly leaving some solid young talent in her wake as she went through the first mile with a 25 meter lead over Alycia Loriz, and Jennifer Burns of Spruce Creek, and Sofia Hernandez of St. Brendans. At the two mile mark her lead was significant enough that she was out of the line of sight of Loriz who was in second at the time, and Fernandez and Burns, who were third and fourth with 1200 meters to go. As Hannah came over the gauntlet towards the finish line I looked at the race clock, and thought for a moment she would become only the third female runner to complete the course in under 20 minutes, but with nobody pushing her she would cruise to her third victory of the year in an impressive time of 20:19.  Freshman Sophia Fernandez of St. Brendan’s was second (21:31), followed by Burns of Spruce Creek( 22:11), Dina Knight of Matanzas(22:37), and hometown girl Tristin Milliken of Key West rounded out the top five with a time of 22:42.

 

The team race was a battle between Matanzas and Spruce Creek, who between them placed ten girls on the podium to receive their conch shell medallions.  While Loder enjoyed her individual victory, it was the young Hawks of Spruce Creek who took home the Conch Shell victors trophy. The Hawks were led by Burns in third, and the chase pack of Monet Bartell, Shelby Thomas, Lindsey Sullivan, and Leah Glassburn taking 7th-10th places for a 37-44 victory over Matanzas, and third place finisher Key West(61).

Cameron Allen of Matanzas is having a solid 2012 season with a season best time of 16:31.20, and his race strategy was dictated by Coach James Wolfe. He was told to either pace off his number two and three teammates for the first mile or just to go hard, and he chose to be the team player going out in 5:37 then doing negative splits to easily finish in a relaxed 17:25.  Allen, like his female teammate was relatively un-pushed in his victory and said the course was a nice change, but different challenge than what he faced the week before at the Mt. Dora Invitational. Brock Guzman from Key West finished second in 18:13.  Drake Goodman Matanzas was third (18:27), Everett Wagner Key West 4th (18:32) and Oisin Harrington of Spruce Creek (18:38) rounded out the top five.  

 

The Matanzas boys finished with five runners in the top ten in route to victory with 25 points. Top finishers for the Pirates included Jon Cellini (6th), Anthony Colasanti (7th). and Randy Pires (8th). Spruce Creek (53) got second place on a tie breaker with Key West that went down to the number six runner. Key West finished third.

Anyone that is looking for a great meet with a course that truly is a challenge and a great trip to create some team bonding should really look into this meet for 2013. The course that is to tough to tame provided everything you could imagine, and the people were so friendly that it’s hard to imagine not returning to hopefully a much larger field next season. Special Thank you to Coach Terrence of Key West who provided me a cart for race footage. I would have used more of it if I could have learned how to hold on tighter. After rolling off the cart with a mile to go right in front of our girls that managed to give them far too much entertainment for my liking.  Next up will be Flrunners 13. Look for the teams that competed here to post some much faster times as historically this course runs 45 seconds to 1:15 slower than Chain of Lakes Park.

Girls Highlights

• 5,000 Meter Run - Hannah Loder (Matanzas HS) 20:18.72;

Boys Highlights

• 5,000 Meter Run - Cameron Allen (Matanzas HS) 17:25.00;