Florida Mountain Dew Invitational

Week 3 of the season finds a lot of great teams from both the high school and college ranks making their way to Gainesville to compete at this weekends Mt Dew Invitational at Mark Bostick Golf Course, the University of Florida's home XC course.  This meet is larger than in year's past with more high school teams and the added significance of Florida and the course being host to the 2013 SEC XC Championships.  Several SEC XC Teams (Auburn, Florida, LSU, South Carolina, and Tennessee) will be competing at the meet this year as a prelude to the SEC Championships on Nov 1st.  A slew of in-state colleges and university's will also make the trek to compete. 

The women will run 6k as Florida see's this a real good tune-up to test out the SEC Championship distance, and the men will run their standard 8K for the Invitational.  The high school boys and girls course will be 5K and once again we can expect the "dueling starts" for all the races with teams lining up on the left and the right with convergence roughly 200 meters after the slightly downhill start.  The "dueling starts" proved highly effective last year.  With so many runners expected on the starting line, roughly 2,800 athletes between the 70 plus high school and 28 college teams entered, meet management has stretched out the starting line even further than last year in hopes of ensuring runners have enough space to ward off incessant call-backs with runners going down in the first 100 meters.  Last year the "dueling starts" were a welcome addition and hopefully this year's larger field will forgo multiple call backs for downed runners.

Women's 6K Overview

Florida's women will be the heavy favorites to protect the "home turf".  The Florida women are the defending SEC champions and are presently ranked 2nd in the SEC behind Arkansas.  Although they lost some great runners to graduation, they return a solid core of harriers to include USA World team member in the 1500, Cory McGee which should bolster their roster later in the season as she continues to ease back into racing at the Wisconsin Adidas Invitational on October 19th. They also have some younger runners to include true freshman, Sebring HS grad, Taylor Tubbs and sophomore Julie Macedo that should make an impact early in the season.  The Gators are led up front by Agata Strausa, who won the Gators opening season meet over 2 miles at Western Carolina University and claimed the Women's SEC Runner of the Week honors for her victory.  But this race won't be all orange and blue as we fully expect University of Central Florida sophomore, Belleview HS grad Anne-Marie Blaney, to be in the hunt for the individual title after opening up at with an early season victory at the USF Invitational earning her the American Athletic Conference XC Athlete of the Week honors. Blaney's 16:50.19 shows she's in great early season shape as she bettered the USF Invitational field of 165 competitors by 33 seconds.

Mens 8K Overview

The Florida Men are the only NCAA D1 ranked team in the field, presently sitting #23 in the NCAA Pre-Season Poll and #2 in the SEC behind Arkansas.  They also boast an expected starting 7 that is comprised entirely of Florida high school graduates but expect that to change in the future as a resurgent Florida program starts to garner national interest with recruits.

To start the season, the Gators were led by Mark Parrish covering the 5K at Western Carolina in 14:50.  It will be interesting to see the strides made by Mandarin grad Eddie Garcia, Boone grad J.L. Hines and SEC 10K Champion, Creekside grad, Jimmy Clark, who was 2nd man for the Gators at Western Carolina.  Finishing 5th for the Gators at Western Carolina was 2013 Palmetto Ridge grad Carlos Miranda, going 15:32.14, a noticeable performance for the true freshman that earned Carlos SEC Male Freshman of the Week honors.

Girls Varsity 5K Preview

After 2 weeks of the regular season, we're starting to glimpse the future and what the remainder of the the 2013 season entails.  There is nothing better than head-to-head competition to make the picture clearer.  

Last week we saw defending 1A State Champion Julie Wollrath lead for the first half of Katie Caples, eventually succumbing to Nease's Karen Xiang who is off to a rip-roaring 2013 season. Julie held on for 2nd at Katie Caples and the week prior had cruised to victory at the regular season Wickham Park Jamboree. 

This week we get to see the majority of 1A State Championship contenders go head to head in a field that include Evangelical Christian's sophomore Sarah Candiano, 2013 3200 champion, Oak Hall's #1, Britney Olinger, 4th at Katie Caples, and Shorecret Prep's Alex Eaton, who won the Indian Rocks Christian Invitational. 

Also in the hunt for individual honors will most definitely be Lake Nona sophomore Adair Lyden.  Last week at the Edgewater Invitational, we saw Adair run away from the competition, looking stronger than she did as a freshman where she finished 8th in the 2013 State 2A XC Championships. 

We'll also get to see a battle for 3A unfold once again this week as the local battle for supremacy between Ft Myers Senior Emily Edwards and Estero's Araceli Leon heads North as we go into week 3.  Score to date, one-all with Edwards beating Leon at the Estero 3D Invitational and Leon winning last week with a shot across the bow at the Ft Myers Optimist Invitational. 

Last years Mt Dew Invitational Champion was freshman Alexa Cruz who used the meet to propel herself and her St. Thomas teammates to an outstanding 2012 XC season, culminating in St. Thomas winning their first ever 4A State XC Championship.  Earlier this week, Alexa finished 2nd to Julia Montgomery from Pinecrest which is a tough read.  Could it be Alexa was holding back a little reserve for the bigger more prestigious Mt Dew Invitational especially seeing she is the defending champion?

The Mark Bostick Golf Course with it's undulating terrain can be a tough course for anyone wanting to run away from the field.  The better tactic is to keep everyone in check with a little reserve left for late in the race.  This race sets up perfectly for Adair Lyden and Araceli Leon.  We expect to see them battle it out for the overall victory based on their early season successes.

The team battle should be a 5 team affair.  We see Estero, Holy Trinity, Oak Hall, St. Thomas, and Winter Park as the 5 favorites. 

Holy Trinity is presently ranked #1 in 1A but finished runner-up and 10 points back of #2 Oak Hall at last weeks Katie Caples.  The battle between these teams will undoubtedly continue on and is too close to call during any given week.

3A Estero continues to reload year after year and this year is no different.  The addition of Araceli Leon into their line-up immensely helps the Wildcats lay claim as the best team in 3A.  One thing we've become to expect from Estero teams is toughness and a strong work ethic.  Fully expect them to be in the hunt for the team title as well but they'll need some help with other teams having an off day.

Last week we saw the emergence of the Winter Park Wildcats as a force for the 2013 season when they packed it up early and won convincingly at the 41st Annual Astronaut Invitational on the Chain of Lakes XC course scoring just 25 points behind the 2nd place finish of Emily Nix and a 28 second split from 1-5, the best of any Girls team in the State.  Now we get to see them go up against the defending 4A State Champions from St. Thomas who are coming off a win at the Ft Lauderdale City Championships also scoring 25 points.

All things considered, if Winter Park sticks to their game plan, packs it up early and holds on mid to late race, the Wildcats should be 2 and 0 this season. 

(photo by Kay Oliver)

Boys 5K Preview

Belen Jesuit and Miami Sunset are the Sunshine State's 2 nationally ranked boys teams according to Dyestat.com and raced mid week with Belen 2 points better than Miami Sunset in a mid-sized 31 school meet at the Miami-Dade Youth Fair Invitational.  That's the standard that all the other teams from across the State face up North in Gainesville; knowing the 2 best teams at this point in the season are interestingly enough, South Florida teams who tackled Larry and Penny but get a bye week from the rolling hills at Mark Bostick.

Individually, look for Dr Phillips sophomore Jean D'Haiti from Dr. Phillips to make a statement after unofficially winning last week's Edgewater Invitational before being steered off-course 200 meters from the finish.  Jean finished 7th in the official results but that doesn't say much.  Fully expect that he will be in the lead pack and if he's close at the end, his kick will pay huge dividends.

Ft Myers senior and 2012 XC 3A State Championship runner-up, Tyler Bennett is coming off a good win from last weekends Ft Myers Optimist Invitational going 16:03 on a tough course showing he is in good early season form.

Freedom senior Connor Ferrentino has had success on this course, finishing 5th last year and cruised to victory last weekend going 16:19 at the 41st Annual Astronaut Rotary Invitational.   Connor's success has him running healthy after a great summer of training at altitude in Colorado.  Second to Connor last week was Deland senior Kenneth Piniero who was 14 seconds back of Conner and will look to close the gap this week.

Last week's Katie Caples Invitational showed St Augustine senior Noah Kemp has some legit strength and endurance finishing 2nd to Brandon Marquez from Timber Creek in 16:34, laying off the early pace but moving up mid race to put himself in position for a great finish.  Finishing 4th at Katie Caples was Holy Trinity Junior Andrew Cacciatore in 16:42.  Katie Caples ran long this year so those times will seem slow in comparison to faster times from around the State. 

Land O' Lakes senior Travis Nichols is off to a fast start winning the Red Mule 5K, Holloway Park Jamboree and the Lecanto Invitational in 16:05 after missing the 2013 track season with a fractured right foot.

The Boys team battle is up for grabs as some teams have legitimate front runners that will keep their team score low while still others lack a true front runner but make up their points with depth from 1-5.

South Florida is well represented with St. Thomas and Park Vista.  St. Thomas won the Ft Lauderdale City Championships this past week and Park Vista won the Martin County Under the Lights Invitational. 

St. Thomas is presently ranked #1 in the 2nd FACA 4A rankings but we suspect they need to win here at Mt Dew to hold off nationally ranked Miami Sunset in FACA's next poll.  Park Vista is presently ranked 5th in the FACA poll.

Central Florida has 4 teams that could challenge for the team title.  Colonial, Dr. Phillips, Holy Trinity, and Winter Park. 

Colonial eked out a win at the sloppy crowded Edgewater Invitational by 8 points over a much improved Dr. Phillips team now led by Coach Jorge Fleitas. 

Holy Trinity is a young team with 3 freshmen in their top 5 and finished 4th last week at Katie Caples.  Winter Park's Boys finished 2nd last week at Chain of Lakes in the 41st Annual Astronaut Invitational on a course that always seems to run fast.

St. Augustine's boys were left off the radar screen in our preview for the Katie Caples Invitational last weekend but showed up in earnest, led by Noah Kemp and a 1-5 gap of 1:50.

This weekends action at Florida's Mountain Dew Invitational will make the picture a little clearer with head-to-head competition as all these competitors "Go the Distance".