Ram Invite @ Riverview High School Meet Distance Recap
West Coast Report by John Stevenson
What's going on Distance Preps?!!!
It was a beautiful Friday in Sarasota where many local teams from Manatee, Sarasota, and Charlotte counties converged on Riverview High School to participate in the 41st Ram Invite!
There were some great racing and stellar performances in the distance events.
4x800
It all started with a rematch between the Lemon Bay and North Port girls in the 4x800. North Port came out on top again with a big performance from their 3rd leg Jamie Weisberger that pulled away from Lemon Bay to give North Portís anchor, Sydney Guenther, about 15 meter lead on Lemon Bayís Abigayle Weinfeld. Abigayle closed the gap on Sydney, but spent a lot of energy to do so. With 200 meters left Sydney pulled away and clocked a 9:54 school record for the North Port ladies! The first and second legs for North Port were Kaley Boething and Lindsay Boething, respectively.
Boys of North Port didn't want to be out done by the ladies and ran away with the 4x800 victory over 2nd place Port Charlotte. Port Charlotte had the lead after the first leg ran by Tyler Fisher. It was a close battle until the 3rd leg, where Trequan Moreland of North Port put quite a bit of distance on Port Charlotte. This gave Billy Castrovince a comfortable lead to cruise to a 8:24 victory! The first and second legs for North Port were Michael Barnes and Jon Back, respectively.
1600
Right as the gun went off, one could tell that this was Emily Harding's of Sarasota race to win. She accelerated into the lead and never gave it up. At the 100, she already had a 10 meter lead on 2nd place.
Emily's 1st lap was 80 seconds and then negative split every lap after that; finishing with a 75 second final lap and a monster PR of 5:10, which is the leading 3A time for the 1600.
Next week in Charlotte it's going to be a great early season test for some west coast 1600 runners where we could possible see Harding, Emily Edwards, Araceli Leon, Anita Munoz, Daley Cline, and Bethany Jenkins.
No one ever challenged Harding with 2nd place being her teammate and junior Angelina Grebe with 5:27, which was a PR for Angie. Rounding out the top 3 was North Portís Sydney Guenther with 5:32 which is also a PR for Sydney.
Emily talks about her monster PR here.
On the boys side, this was a battle between three sub 4:30 milers: Zack Summerall of Sarasota, Canaan Messter-Kitterman of Bayshore, and Adam Bradtmueller of Sarasota. The first lap was lead out by Zack to make sure the pace was honest at 67 seconds; nothing blazing, but honest. Canaan took control of the 2nd lap to gain some separation from the pack. At the 800 mark it was Canaan, Zack, Adam, and Sarasota Riverview's Bryce Vokus in a single file line around 2:16 for Canaan's 800 split. Canaan opened up a little gap between himself and Zack with a good 3rd lap dropping Adam and Bryce. With 1 lap left, Canaan had about a 10 meter lead on Zack. You could see Zack closing the gap on Canaan with 300 meters left and with 200 left Zack caught Canaan and pulled away for a 3 second victory over Canaan.
Zack's last lap was 64 seconds and crossed with a season best 4:24. Canaan finished 2nd with 4:27 and third place was Adam with his season best 4:30.
Zack discusses his 1600 meter race here.
800
The 800 came down to a three person race with Emily Harding winning wire to wire and a sprint finish for 2nd place with Lemon Bay's Haley Blem and Sarasota's Mackenzie Brown, with Haley coming from behind and out kicking Mackenzie. Emily completed the half mile in a PR of 2:22 with Haley and Mackenzie both crossing in 2:24.
With Emily's two victories, she was named the Ram Invite Female Runner MVP!
Emily's 800 meter interview is here.
The boy's race was also won with a wire to wire victory by Braden River's Victor Storhoff with 2:02; followed by Adam Bradtmueller of Sarasota with 2:04 and North Port's Michael Barnes with 2:05. Victor took out the 1st lap in 56 with a huge lead. Adam tried to close the gap but ran out of track.
Victor talks about his 800 meter race and his season goals here.
3200
As it was for all the other girls distance events, there was a wire to wire winner. This time by one of the best cross country runners in the state this year, Grace Cassagrande from Cardinal Mooney. Grace's goal was to go sub 11:30 and she ran well under that mark with 11:20. This was Grace's first race of the track season and from what I saw she is ready to rock and compete with the best in the state!
Second place was a sprint finish between Sarasota's freshman Sage Lyons and North Port's junior Sydney Guenther. Sage edged out Sydney by 3 tenths of a second. They both had plenty left with running about a 78 second last lap. Both ladies PRed, running 11:54.
The boy's race was a lot more exciting with a showdown between Cardinal Mooney's Cal Davidson-Turner, Zack Summerall, Canaan Messter-Kitterman, and Blake Riley of Riverview Sarasota.
The top guys were in the lead pack for the 1st mile with no one really dictating the race. Their 1st mile was around 5:04. Cal took control of the race and pulled ahead, leading the next 800 meters, but died off a little while Canaan, Zack, and Blake were battling going back and forth for the lead, but with Zack's 800 speed, he pulled away from the pack with 200 left for the victory over Blake Riley.
Zack crossed at 9:46 and Blake was 2 seconds behind with 9:48. Finishing in the top 3 was Canaan with 9:51. All three times are season bests with Zack and Blake's sub 10 performance both being PR's.
Next Week
The Sarasota squad will be split this coming week with the ladies going to Lady Tarpon in Charlotte and the boys will be traveling even further to the Edison Relays in Ft. Myers.
Next week should be very exciting. Battle's for the girl's 1600 title should be a great race and on the boys side we should see Zack racing Tyler Bennett of Ft. Myers in the 1600.
