Brandon gets an easy tuneup for districts, while Holy Names works to improve its times.
By TERRY JONES
Published October 17, 2004
GIBSONTON - The Brandon boys and Academy of Holy Names girls captured team titles Saturday morning in the W.D. Johnson Invitational Cross Country Meet at Simmons Park.
The Eagles scored 52 to win. Newsome placed a distant second with 135, followed by Bloomingdale with 153, Durant 154 and East Bay 198.
In a close battle, Academy scored 61 to edge out Plant's 63. Bloomingdale was third with 108, followed by Brandon 146 and Newsome 184.
Evander Jones captured individual honors for the boys, edging Brandon's Orssie Bumpus by four hundredths of a second. The two juniors ran side by side throughout the meet, but Jones' kick in the final 50 feet won the race.
East Bay's Paige Williams won the girls race with a time of 19 minutes, 21 seconds and Sara Petrick of Academy was second with 19.37.
The meet seemed to be more of a fun run for most teams. Since the course is going to be used for districts next week, some of the coaches ran junior varsity members or B-team members in the varsity races and put their top runners at slow speeds in the jayvee runs, just to see the course.
Bob Maestas, Brandon's coach, had his runners go hard in the first mile and slow down to stay together and save energy for districts next week.
"More than anything, I wanted them to get used to the course for districts next Thursday," Maestas said. "I told them to have something left over at the end. Now we will focus on some short speed runs for next week and make sure they all get plenty of rest. Brandon's homecoming dance was last night, so many of our guys ran on 4-5 hours of sleep."
Jones and Bumpus are good friends, but intense competitors. They ran the entire race side by side like they were on a leisurely Sunday afternoon jog.
"We talked to each other throughout the race, making sure no one passed us," Jones said. "The beach part of the course was great, because the tide was out. We ran close to the water, where the sand was packed hard. In the last 50 feet the friendship ended, the competition started. My kick worked for me there."
"Neither of us worked too hard at it today," Bumpus said. "He has a great kick at the end. It will be hard for anyone to beat him if they are close near the end."
Scoring for Brandon were Bumpus, Jeremy Lautzenheiser, Chris Huff, Dylan Hernandez and Ben Henderson. Drew Woodke finished 15 hundredths of a second behind Henderson as the Eagles number six.
Academy coach Pamela Legg was not interested in getting her runners accustomed to the course, because they will not run districts at Simmons Park.
"We wanted to get Kristina Darby below 22 minutes for our districts," Legg said. She is our number five and the better she can place the lower the overall team score will be. She ran a 21:56, which is what we were looking for. Everyone did well today."
Williams and Petrick both enjoyed the course.
"This course was a little different and I really liked it," Williams said. "There were plenty of woods and of course the beach. Running in the sand was hard, but fun."
"This was a fun course," Petrick said. "Our team has been training hard all season to get ready for the districts. Paige is a friend. Our fathers are best friends and both always encourage us always."
Scoring for the winning Jaguars were Petrick, Aileen Fletcher, Ashleigh Aldridge, Kristina Darby and Kaia Tershowski.
SATURDAY'S RESULTS: WD JOHNSON INVITATIONAL
Boys
Team - 1. Brandon 52; 2. Newsome 135; 3. Bloomingdale 153; 4. Durant 154; 5. East Bay 198; 6. Plant City 236; 7. Riverview 250; 8. Freedom 280; 9. Leto 284; 10. Chamberlain 329; 11. King 356; 12. Armwood 424.
Team - 1. Academy of the Holy Names 61; 2. Plant 63; 3. Bloomingdale 108; 4. Brandon 146; 5. Newsome 184; 6. East Bay 192; 7. Plant City 203; 8. Tampa Bay Tech 204; 9. Freedom 235; 10. Chamberlain 266; 11. Alonso 293; 12. Sickles 316; 13. Armwood 319; 14. Riverview 335; 15. Durant 404.
