West Coast Report (Week of March 10-15 March)

by West Coast Correspondent John Stevenson for DistancePreps.com

It is mid-March and times are heating up!! It was great to see so many great performances at the Steinbrenner meet on Saturday! We saw two state leading times generated in the distance events and a great performance by the Countryside 4x800 boys for dipping under the 8 minute mark.

First off, the Girls 4x800

We saw 3 teams crack the 10 minute mark lead by West Orange High School with 9:55, but Lakewood Ranch High School was right on their tails with 9:57 followed by George Steinbrenner with 9:58. Great start to an awesome meet.

West Orange senior Nicole Kvitauskas takes the baton for the anchor leg in the girls 4x800 (Twangster)

On the boy's side, it came down to two teams, Countryside and Bloomingdale. Both 4A teams are looking for state podium finishes. On Saturday, Countryside finished on top with the 2nd fastest state time, 7:59! Bloomingdale finished 2nd, posting a time of 8:05.
 

Countryside's Andrew Llewellyn brings it home dipping below 8 flat going 7:59.54 (Twangster)

1600

Steinbrenner isn't just a meet with 50 plus teams and lots of talented runners, but a grueling day of staying hydrated and not letting the long day affect your performance. The 4x800 is run in the morning and the fastest heat of the 1600 isn't until the finals which are around 3:30 pm, so it's important to have a game plan on staying fueled up, hydrated, and fresh.

The girlís 1600 was dominated by the Alabama signee and Ft. Myers senior Emily Edwards. I can't remember a time she has lost a 1600 race. She led from the start, stringing out the field.  Grace Cassagrande held on for the 1st 800 but dropped off Emily's pace.

Ft Myer's senior Emily Edwards leads a slew of challengers early in the girls 1600 (Twangster)

Overall, I think this was one of Emily's best races. She basically even paced the 1st three laps with 75's and then put in a surge to negative split the last lap with 73. Emily crossed with state leading time and season best of 5:00.46.

Topping off the top 3 was Hannah Brookover of Calvary Christian with 5:07 and Grace from Cardinal Mooney with 5:08; both were PR's for the ladies.

The boy's 1600 came down to who was the most consistent.

The first couple laps had a good pack of runners including Jack Guyton from HB Plant, Tyler Stahl of Land O' Lakes, Canaan Meester-Kitterman of Bayshore, Jack Rogers of Robinson, and Andrew Llewellyn of Countryside.

HB Plant's Jack Guyton (Bib#3) and Land O' Lakes Tyler Stahl (Bib #5) lead the Boy's 1600

The lead went back and forth throughout the contest but Guyton took control of the last lap for the 2 second victory over Tyler Stahl. Jack's time was a PR of 4:19 putting his name in the mix for one of the top 4A 1600 runners. All the top 4 guys ran PR's at Steinbrenner; Guyton, Stahl, Meester-Kitterman, and Llewellyn.

800

From the seed times, it looked like a battle between Rachel Cazares of Gaither and Emily Edwards of Ft. Myers. Rachel went out blazing with a huge 1st lap, but Emily had a controlled first lap and made her way up to the front of the chase pack. Emily kept on gaining ground on Rachel and almost came with the "come from behind victory", but just ended up a little short.

Gaither Rachel Cazares was out fast gapping the field early in the girls 800

Rachel ran a 2:16.7 where Emily crossed at 2:17.0. Hannah Brookover from Calvary Christian rounded out the top 3 with a 2:21 PR.

The boy's 800 was, in my opinion, the biggest distance performance of the day. Palmetto Ridge's Kolin Ashbacher destroyed his PR and competition by separating himself from the pack with a 1:53.58.

Palmetto Ridge Kolin Ashbacher en route to a state leading 1:53.58 for the win.

He took off from the get go with 56-57 second first lap and never let off the gas to cross the line with the new state leading time. To finish off the podium was Jack Rogers of Robinson and Kevin Heron of Bloomingdale.
 

3200

The 2 mile was totally controlled by Chamberlain's Maggie Parrish. She controlled her 1st two laps with the pack but dropped the pack for the rest of the race with a big PR of 11:46. Claire Snyder who came in with the leading seed time came in 2nd with 12:07. I had a great post-race conversation with Maggie as it was a joy talking to her.

Chamberlain's Maggie Parrish en route to victory in the girls 3200 (Twangster)

The boy' s 3200 was a pretty good race with two teammates working together and a great finishing kick of Dean McGregor of Ft. Myers. Land O' Lakes duo of Jake Poore and Travis Nichols took control of the race with both pushing the pace in the 1st mile, but Travis fell off the back so it was up to Jake to take home the victory for Land O' Lakes.

Poore, a University of Tampa signee, had a 15 meter lead coming into the last lap where Dean McGregor kicked from the 400 mark and was able to get behind Jake with 200 left, but Jake had some more left in the tank and pulled out the victory with a 14 second PR finishing in 9:35 followed by Dean's 9:36. Finishing the top 3 was Sarasota Riverview's Blake Riley with a PR of 9:41.

Coming up this week:

Big FSU Relay's meet this week!!

Several west coast teams will be there. I'm looking forward to the girl's 1600 and the boy's 3200. The girl's 1600 is loaded with talent and fast times!

You have Edwards, Montgomery, Brookover, Wilson, Rudman, Harding, Stephens, Eaton, Leon, man the list just goes on. The question for the boy's 3200 is if anyone can challenge Sukhi Khosla?

My gut answer is no, but there is a lot of good runners in the 9:30 range. In the 1600, even without Sukhi running, this can still possibly generate a new state leading time with the likes of Ferrentino, Guyton, Summerall, Convey, Rodriguez, and Morken.

Other meets on the calendar include the Tarpon Invite in Charlotte, ODA Invite in Sarasota, and Ridge Run Invite at Palmetto Ridge High.

USF Steinbrenner Video's (140) - http://www.distancepreps.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=31488&do=videos&year=2014&folder_id=1951&year=2014

USF Steinbrenner Photo's (1571) - http://www.distancepreps.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=31488&do=photos&folder_id=3152&year=2014 

West Coast Correspondent John Stevenson

I've been coaching girls cross country since 2010 at Sarasota High School where the girls took 2nd place in the 2013 3A Cross Country State Final. In 2011, I took over the distance track program for both the boys and girls and in 2014 I took the realm as Head Coach of the Boys Track program at SHS. I've been a competitive runner that enjoys the longer distances and triathlete since 2007 and competed in many distances from sprint triathlon to ironman.

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