TOP MOMENT OF THE MEET (1)
With every place counting, Widefield's Cole Munoz holds off Matthew Roberds at the end.
What course conditions? Tanner Norman runs 15:51 to a comfortable win.
The truth is, course conditions impacted everyone on Friday. A thousand meters of long grass with spongy conditions underneath slows anyone down.
Interestingly, Tanner Norman took a very subdued approach to the first, grassy 500 meters of the race. While Elizabeth's David Fine and Widefield's Max Martinez went straight to the front to test each other's mettle, Norman hung back, and more than his usual distance.
By 1500 meters into the race, however, Norman had gone aggressively to the front and was already opening a substantial gap. By midway through, he would own a gap of nearly 50 meters and never be threatened.
And, that left the battle for the team title as the only mystery to be resolved.
There are no points assigned to the size of the gap between runners, so Norman's win was only a point better than the second place posted by Max Martinez. TCA's Ryan Moen gained one more point on Cole Munoz, as a tight battle between Widefield and TCA continued through the second runners. Cannan Lamberth and Mason Norman gained nine more points versus Widefield in positions 4 and 5. But Widefield got it all back, plus a point, when Beslim Torres-Valle won the battle of the 5s.
The final team tally had Widefield with 81 and TCA with 82. Nobody else was close