In Tallahassee, Florida, there’s a Thomasville Road. It goes to Thomasville, Georgia. Likewise, Crawfordville Road goes to Crawfordville, Miccosukee Road goes to Miccosukee, and the Blountstown Highway will take you to Blountstown. The pattern breaks down, though, when you come to Centerville Road. Leave Tallahassee on Centerville Road, and you’ll never come to anything recognizable as Centerville. It’s not that Centerville isn’t there, but it started as a farming community in the early 1800s, was never incorporated, and never developed a village center. You can spot Old Pisgah Church, though; the congregation has met in Centerville since 1830. United States troops camped in Centerville during Reconstruction. Sunny Hill Farm in Centerville was the site of the 3A Region 1 cross country meet in 2009, 20110, and 2012. On 8 November 2014, the harriers will be back at Sunny Hill Farm for the Region 1 championship in classes 3A and 1A.

Sunny Hill Farm looks like a place where you’d run cross country. There are fields, woods, trails, slopes, and even a bridge. The course has too many turns to be fast, and it’s too narrow to be a championship course like the one a few miles away at Apalachee Regional Park. State Final races include up to 24 teams, more than Sunny Hill Farm could handle. But a Regional field is no more than sixteen teams, and the Farm is just about right for that for an event of that scale.

Sunny Hill Farm doesn’t have a long history as a course. Chiles hosted the 2009, 2010, and 2012 Regions there, but no other meets have been held at the Farm. However, those three meets included athletes and performances that other venues don’t see in a decade of racing. The 2009 meet by itself made the Farm’s reputation. Class 3A and 2A competed that day in what turned out to be a preview of the State Final.

#92 Jimmy Clark leads the 2009 3A Region 1 boys' race at Sunny Hill Farm. Three-time state champ Matt Mizereck would outkick Clark that day, and again the following week at State. But Clark would return to the Farm the next year to claim the Region 1 title, then go on to win the 2010 3A State Final.

No one who saw the 3A boys race at Sunny Hills Farm in 2009 can forget seeing Leon senior Matt Mizereck, already a two-time state champion, charge by Jimmy Clark on the final straightaway to take the Region 1 title. A week later, Mizereck would outkick Clark again at Little Everglades Ranch to earn a third straight state title. Before that boys race, Chiles juniors Lilly Williams and Carly Thomas had gone one-two in close 3A girls 5K. At Little Everglades they would go one-two again, but Carly Thomas would take the state title. Bishop Kenny’s Colin Barker won the 2A Region 1 boys race; he would win the 2A State Final seven days later. Stephanie Strasser of Fernandina Beach won the 2A Region 1 girls race and went on to take second in the State Final. The Chiles girls, the Leon boys, and the Bishop Kenny boys all won team titles at Sunny Hill Farm in 2009, and followed up with State championships the next Saturday. The Bishop Kenny girls placed second to Bolles in 2A at Region 1, but beat Bolles the following week and won State.

#40 Lily Williams of Chiles leads the 2009 3A Region 1 girls' race at Sunny Hill Farm, chased by #38 Carly Thomas. Williams went on to win the race, but Thomas won the State Final a week later.

Seven state titles, team and individual, came out of Sunny Hill Farm in 2009. In 2010, when only class 3A competed at Sunny Hill Farm, two titles came out of Region 1. Classes 3A, 2A, and 1A met at Sunny Hill Farm for Region 1 in 2012; the alumni of that meet earned four state titles (and five runners-up).

2014 at Sunny Hill probably won’t have the stature of 2009, but it’s still something to get excited about, starting with the 3A boys race. At Sunny Hill in 2012, Niceville athletes Thomas Howell and Nick Morken duked it out for the 3A Region 1 title, with Howell prevailing. Behind the two Niceville Eagles, a Leon sophomore finished third. Howell won State the next week; the Leon sophomore placed thirteenth. The Leon sophomore was Sukhi Khosla, and he hasn’t lost a cross-country race in the state of Florida since that 2012 State Final. Now a senior, Saturday will be Khosla’s last trip to Sunny Hill Farm. He’ll be favored to win the 3A Region 1 title, and the State title. Likewise, the Chiles boys are considered Florida’s top team in class 3A. The Timberwolves will be at Sunny Hill, as well as the team with best chance of upsetting them--Leon.

The Creekside girls will be at Sunny Hill Farm with a good chance of winning Region 1, and they’ll be favored at State. With Kelly Aponte of St Augustine and Tara Openshaw of Creekside mixing it up with the best runners of Northwest Florida, it should be a great race for the 3A Region 1 individual title. When it comes to the State Final, though, Melbourne senior Julie Wollrath has the edge in class 3A. Nevertheless, look for some Sunny Hill Farm alumnae on the podium.

3A Region 1 may end up being called the “Region of Champions.” 1A Region 1, the other contest at Sunny Hill Farm, isn’t quite as strong. The Maclay boys are the class of Region 1 and they may get their team to the podium at State, but no one in class 1A is going to touch Holy Trinity this year. The Maclay girls also look poised to win Region 1, but when it comes to the individual title, Baker’s Maya Espinosa appears to have the best shot.

Yet nothing is certain. Even if everything goes as expected (and it never does) there are athletes and teams that still haven’t raced head to head. Because of that uncertainty, you can expect some surprises--the surprises that keep cross-country fans heading out to the races season after season.

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/

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