Compared with the previous weekend, the weekend of 4 October 2014 will be a quiet one for cross country in the Panhandle. You could think of the coming weekend as the proverbial lull before the storm, the storm being Pre State at Apalachee Regional Park on 11 October 2014.
Two of the heavy hitters, Chiles and Leon, weren’t in Northwest Florida last weekend. Chiles was in Georgia, with most of the Timberwolves at the Atlanta Classic and a few junior varsity athletes at the Quail Trail Invitational just over the state line near Thomasville. Up in Atlanta, the Chiles boys dominated the Georgia schools, racking up a winning score of just 34 points. Senior Avery Bartlett led the Timberwolves charge, getting his second win of the season with a narrow 15:55.14 to 15:56.44 win over Walton High senior Mitchell Sanders. It was Bartlett's first sub-16:00 performance this season.
Bartlett’s finishing speed as an 800-meter state champion helped him in Atlanta. In Jacksonville, Florida, Leon senior Sukhi Khosla didn’t need that kind of finishing kick. At Bartram Trail’s 13th annual Bale ‘N’ Trail Cross-Country Original, Khosla took the lead 600 meters into the boys 5K race and spent the rest of the race putting on an exhibition, winning the race by over 200 meters with a 15:37.60. Including Khosla, the Lions put their first four runners in the top five, ending up with a mathematically unbeatable score of 23 points.
Other Northwest Florida schools stayed closer to home, for instance competing in Pensacola at the 14th annual Gulf Coast Cross Country Stampede. Teams from six states ran in the meet, but the Fort Walton Beach boys held off the invaders, winning the varsity race with 106 points. Fort Walton Beach ace, senior Trey LaNasa, lost to one of the foreigners, placing second to Tupelo (Mississippi) High senior Darnell Collier, 16:19.70 to 16:27.70. The outsiders also performed well in the girls’ race, with American Christian Academy (Tuscaloosa, Alabama) senior Kaitlin York winning by a wide margin in 18:35.10. The girls' team title went to Harrison High of Kennesaw, Georgia, with 117 points. Florida’s best was Panhandle power Niceville, third with 166 points. Choctawhatchee was ninth with 301 points. Running without their top athlete, junior Emma Rudman, Fort Walton Beach placed 12th with 325 points.
At Frank Brown Park in Panama City Beach, Arnold High senior Jordan Lance won the boys' 5K at his school's Marlin Mad Dash, running 16:35.72. It was Panama City Mosley High that took the team title, though, scoring 33 points on the six-team field. Likewise, Arnold junior Michaela Ashley ran 19:29.53 to win the girls' 5K, but the Mosley girls put up 39 points to outscore the other four teams in the race.
Just west of Tallahassee at Silver Lake, class 1A contender Maclay took a team title at the Salute to Prefontaine Forest Run, with the Marauder boys putting up 23 points behind the first-place finish of eighth-grader Clayburn Milford. Milford ran 18:24.22 on a course that would charitably be described as "rugged." Maclay also won the girls' title, taking five of the first seven places and scoring 21 points. The top spot, though, belonged to Wakulla High sophomore Haleigh Martin. Martin picked up her third win in three races to remain perfect on the season, navigating the narrow, sandy course around Silver Lake in 21:19.
This weekend, though, the only action in Northwest Florida is in Panama City at Rutherford's fourth annual Ram Run. Fort Walton Beach is traveling out-of-region to race at the 15th annual FLRunners meet in Titusville, Florida, and a few Panhandle schools are headed to Brewton, Alabama, for the T. R. Miller Challenge. Heavyweights Leon and Chiles, though, are eschewing competition to prepare for the Pre State in mid-October and State in mid-November. Leon County Parks has started to dress up Apalachee Regional Park for the big dance, and it already looks clothed for speed. But I’ll save that bit of fashion news for next week’s Northwest Report.
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
