The Lecanto sophomore and Mitchell senior are winners at the Zak Lukas Invitational.
By JOHN SCHWARB
Published October 3, 2004
BROOKSVILLE - The budding rivalry between Lecanto's Taylor Cooke and Hernando's Leela Hadsock continued, but after a race like this neither could leave unhappy.
At Saturday's Zak Lukas Invitational the Panthers sophomore won in 19 minutes, 28 seconds, with the Leopards senior two seconds behind in 19:30 after a strong closing kick. Both shattered their best times for 3.1 miles.
"She ran awesome, I ran awesome," Hadsock said. "Taylor happened to run a little bit better than me."
The two runners, each the best in their respective counties, have matched up well all season. Cooke beat Hadsock by 13 seconds at the Red Mule Runners Labor Day 5K, then three weeks later Hadsock was some 55 seconds faster at the Lecanto Invitational.
Last weekend at the flrunners.com Invitational in Tampa, Cooke clocked 20:27 and Hadsock 20:29 in different races. On the fast Hernando High course they were together again, and two seconds apart again.
"It's fun, we're friends," Cooke said. "It's just nice to have someone you can see on the course and be like "oh, yeah.' We're rivals on the course."
Cooke's win was part of a great day for the Lecanto girls, who repeated as team champion with 26 points, well ahead of Hernando's 52. Each of Lecanto's five scored runners were in the top eight overall.
"It's not just the points; all my top five runners were under 22 minutes," Lecanto coach Dan Epstein said. "That's looking good for this time of year."
For the boys, host Hernando won for the first time since 1980 by the slimmest of margins. The Leopards and Mitchell tied with 85 points, forcing a sixth-runner tiebreaker. Hernando's Mike DeVary placed 43rd and Mitchell's Zach Walker 47th.
"There is value in that (sixth) spot," Hernando boys coach Ernie Chatman said. "It's good to see that happen, sometimes where what you tell them actually comes to show its face."
Hernando had its share of personal bests, such as leader Ben Martucci's 16:54 (sixth overall). Mitchell senior Jeff Masterson won for the second consecutive year, clocking 16:06 to lead a group of five Pasco County runners at the top.
It was an emotional return to Hernando for Masterson, one year and one day after his father's death. A year ago at the Zak Lukas Invitational, Masterson delighted in winning for his father and Karen Lukas, whom Masterson met in the hospital while visiting his father.
Karen Lukas' son, Zak, died in a watercraft accident in 2002, and the race formerly known as the Red Mule Invitational was renamed for the late Leopards runner.
"Ms. Lukas and I are pretty close friends," Masterson said. "Coming back up here kind of brought back some memories, some good ones and some hard ones, but now that the race is over ... I feel really happy."
