ORANGE PARK - Cross country runners traversed the Orange Park High campus in a brainchild local race directed by Raider head coach Craig Martin, Noah Yara of Keystone Heights and Emily Turner of Ridgeview, taking top honors for the new event on the cross country calendar.

"I just run each race to improve each week to be ready for the November races," said Turner, who was second last week at the Keystone Heights Invitational and won with a 21 minute, 47.2 second clocking. "This was a challenging course with some sand, some grass, some pavement and a lot of turns."

Turner and Orange Park's Briley Mulder broke from a pack at the front that had a handful of Middleburg girls in the mix before the first mile, before Keystone Heights seventh grader Ryleigh Thomas emerged with a pass on the backside of the course near the Metro Diner to take second behind Turner at 22:08.2.
Thomas surged to break away from Middleburg freshman Lauren Rosset and Mulder, who finished in 22:51.9 and 23:03.3.

Middleburg's cross country teams, coached by the wealth of harrier intellect between Paul Grybb and Kenneth Yancey, have now post back-to-back team wins with the boys and girls doubling up from wins at Keystone Heights to take both ends at Orange Park.
"Today, our strategy was to bring along our 3-4-5 runners with our top runners pacing them through consistent pacing," said Grybb. "We want to close that gap from number one to number five."

In the girls scoring, Middleburg won with 37 points with Clay sneaking into second behind a fifth, sixth finish from sophomore Anneliese Hovda and freshman Jordyne Denny, pushing Keystone Heights to third. Sophomore Melody Tyre was 10th as Keystone Heights' second finisher.

Grybb and Yancey's pace strategy paid dividends with solid runs in 11th and 12th from Isabella Munoz and Riley Toomey with Skylar Marles and Jillian Mescall in at 15th and 16th for the five scoring finishers. Ridgeview got top 10 finishes from Narissa Blocton and Hayleigh Keller, in at eighth and ninth.

For the boys, Yara cruised in the early miles behind Keystone Heights teammate Ryder Thomas and Middleburg's Daniel Johnson. Johnson won the Keystone Heights Invitational and was top area finisher at the Middleburg Bronco Classic two weeks ago and has improved his time to the 17-minute mark.

Yara won in 18:05.7 with Johnson at 18:23.1, with Middleburg putting three more runners in the top 10 to take the team title over Baker County, 31-61 with Keystone Heights third at 69.

Clay's top finisher was sophomore Theodore Davila in sixth with Orange Park landing Gabrial Caraballo in 10th. Ridgeview's top finisher was Robert Petrosky in 14th.

Fleming Island boys fifth in Georgia

By Randy Lefko
randy@claytodayonline.com

CARTERSVILLE, GA - Fleming Island High's boys cross country team finished fifth at the Georgia powerhouse cross country Wingfoot XC Classic in Cartersville with the Golden Eagles having no finishers in top 10, but their top five finishers clearing the top 60 for critical team point placements.
"Strategically, we ran a bit conservative and stayed as a pack and the course itself has some narrow spots that we couldn't move too well," said Fleming Island coach Dave Allen. "We actually did not run personal best times, but we had our top five guys in within 30 seconds of each other and that's the way to get top five finishes."

The Wingfoot XC is an annual gathering of the finest in Georgia, Florida and Alabama cross country teams with Atlanta's Midtown High senior Cameron Collier winning in 15:34.4 and the top five finishers under 16 minutes on the very hilly course. Collier was the Atlanta Public Schools (APS) Runner of the Year last year with a best of 15:43.20.

Fleming Island senior Andrew Boyer was top finisher in 31st place in 16:47.6 with teammates Luke Janke, Marcos Serrano and J P Strombeck all within 11 spots of Boyer and all under 17 minutes. Fifth finisher Ryder Muyres was in at 63rd in 17:24.7.

"Andrew has started to get stronger as the season progresses toward the post season with J.P. and him both capable of a sub-16 time and that will get us one or two more spots up in the team standings in most of these bigger races," Allen said. "We get two or three guys in the 15s and the rest in the 16s, that's where we are shooting."

For the girls, Bowdon junior Averi Lowen had an astounding course record of 16:28.1 with second place a distant 18:01.3. Fleming Island's Brooke Reynolds was 40th in 20:16.0.

Lowen won the NXR Southeast Title last year as a sophomore and is a repeat Georgia state champion. Lowen was also the Gatorade Female Player of Year for Georgia.

Fleming Island has a few more bigger races upcoming with the Bales N Trails at Bartram Trail, the Alligator Lake at Lake City and then districts at Middleburg High.

Oakleaf, Eagles at Bishop Kenny Caples Invite

In the annual Katie Caples Cross Country Invitational —one of the strongest fields in Florida with Buchholz, Lake Wales, Nease and Creekside all ripping the top 20 finishers under 17 minutes —the Oakleaf High boys team got a top finish from Clayton Buettner in 18:10 for 61st place and, for the girls, Fleming Island's Karissa Lou in 46th in 21:13.

Eva Delaney of Creekside won the girls race in 18:36 while Demetrie Meyers led a 1-2-3 Buchholz finish in the boys race with a 15:45 time. Buchholz had Samuel Freas second, just three seconds behind Meyers and David Garrett in at 16:03.