It’s still early in the season, but you could make a case that the boys’ squads from Chiles and Leon are the best cross-country teams in Northwest Florida and possibly the fastest class 3A teams in the state. Those two heavyweights won’t be lining up against each other this Saturday, but Leon will be taking its crew--including 2013 state champion Sukhi Khosla--over to Jacksonville for Bartram Trail’s 13th annual Bale ‘N’ Trail Cross-Country Original.
Bartram Trail High School hasn’t been around that long. Established in 2000, most of the students are older than the school. The school was only a year old though when the Bears first hosted the Bail ‘N’ Trail in 2001. The meet missed a year in 2004 when the NFL dug up the school’s athletic fields, modifying them for use as a practice facility for Super Bowl XXXIX. Outside of that hiccup, the Bale ‘N’ Trail has been annual, attracting not only teams from Greater Jacksonville but also distant schools such as Peachtree Ridge of Lawrenceville, Georgia, whose teams swept the meet in 2013.
Panhandle schools have also been prominent at Bale ‘N’ Trail over the years. The Chiles boys have won two team titles there, as have the Chiles girls. Leon took the boys’ team trophy in 2008; Pensacola Washington did the same in 2010. Chiles alumna Lily Williams holds the girls’ meet record of 17:54.55. Leon’s Matt Mizereck ran the fastest Bale ‘N’ Trail ever in 2008, a 15:06.28. Mizereck was pushed that morning by Melbourne’s Brian Atkinson, who finished only a few meters back in 15:07.99
In the absence of competition like the 2008 Mizereck-Atkinson showdown, Khosla is unlikely to approach the Bale ‘N’ Trail record. In the girls’ race, Fletcher sophomore Kayley Delay has two wins in the first two races of her season, just like Khosla. Bolles junior Mackenzie Wilson wasn’t far behind Delay in those two races, though, nor was Creekside senior Colleen Openshaw. Creekside will also have Distance Preps frosh of the week Tara Openshaw in the race. The Openshaw’s are two of the reasons why the Creekside girls are ranked number one in class 3A in the latest FACA poll. But in order to win Bale ‘N’ Trail, Creekside will have to handle Bolles, the top-ranked team in class 2A, and Bolles has already beaten Creekside once this year at the University of North Florida Invitational.
Among the boys’ teams entered at Bale ‘N’ Trail, three are FACA top ten teams in class 3A--hosts Bartram Trail (#3), Creekside (#7), and Leon (#9). This will be the first time any of the three have met this season. The polls have Bartram Trail favored to win their own meet, but Creekside and Leon would love to prove the polls wrong.
The Northwest schools don’t have to leave the Panhandle this weekend to compete in a large, classic invitational. The 14th annual Gulf Coast Cross Country Stampede is also this Saturday in Pensacola--about as far from Jacksonville as you can get while still being in North Florida. The Stampede is an interstate affair, with Florida schools joined by teams from Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. From the Panhandle alone, though, you get a dramatic girls’ race. There’s the Choctawhatchee - Niceville rematch, after both teams scored 44 points on 13 September at the Bay Invitational, with Niceville winning on the tiebreaker. Add in the closely-matched Fort Walton Beach girls and there’s a race worth watching. As a bonus, you’d also get to see if Fort Walton Beach junior Emma Rudman returns to her 2013 form. Of course, you’d be hoping the Florida girls could outrun the invaders. The same would be true on the boys’ side, where the Sunshine State’s hopes would be pinned on Fort Walton Beach senior Trey LaNasa, West Florida Tech junior Alexander Bulloch, and Jay senior Micah Kemp.
Bartram Trail High School and the Escambia County Equestrian Center may be nearly 400 miles apart, but at either venue you can expect to see some great cross country on Saturday morning.
Northwest Florida Correspondent Herb Wills
Herb Wills' running career goes back to the 1971 boys' age-group mile at the Florida Relays. Since losing that race he has won the 1976 Florida High School class 4A cross-country championship, 1979 AAU USA junior titles in cross-country and the 10,000 meters, and the 1989 TAC USA 30K national championship. As a distance runner at Florida State University from 1978 to 1982, he was NCAA All-American three times in track and once in cross country, and won a silver medal in the marathon at the 1981 World University Games. Graduating Florida State with a degree in mathematics, in the following years Wills ran in the USA Olympic Marathon Trials in 1984, 1988, and 1992, and placed tenth in the Boston Marathon in 1989. After more than a few years of duty as a hurdle setter and lane judge at track meets, Wills discovered that the public address announcer not only got to sit down at meets but was also sheltered from the rain. Since that revelation you can hear him with a microphone in his hand at several track and cross-country events in the Tallahassee area. Writing is another activity you can do while sitting down, and Wills has written about running for Racing South magazine and Tallahassee's local newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat.
You can read more running related tidbits in his blog at http://troubleafoot.blogspot.com/
Herb Wills NorthWest Florida Reports LINK
