The 1A Girls race was certainly the most predictable individual races of the day. Kathryn Fluehr is easily the #1 female runner in the state and has filled Ashley Brasovan's role as Florida's national championship hope for 2009. Her twin sister, Erika, has been in her footsteps all year and the girls from Community School of Naples have finished 1-2 in every race they've been in. Jana Stolting of Maclay was also expected to bring up the third position. All went as planned in that regard.
Kathryn and Erika took the lead from early on in the race. By 400 meters in they were running stride for stride in sort of a trippy mirror image from my perspective from the following golf cart. Not to much further in and the leaders had already separated from the rest of the pack: Emily Edwards lead the chase pack for a while, followed by Stolting and her teammate freshman Stefanie Kurgatt, who was a middle school champion last year.
Going sub-11 for through the two mile, Kathryn had various supporters on the sidelines urging her forward. She seemed a runner compelled. Not necessarily compelled by the time clock exactly and certainly not by her sister who by that point was almost 200 meters behind. The ghosts of the past and perhaps that of living up to the legacy Ashley Brasovan had left for her over the past four years of her amazing career. Brasovan after all was a national champion and holds pretty much every cross country record in the state... including the Little Everglades course record of 17:01. That was until Saturday, Fluehr put to rest any remaining doubters by taking down the course record and becoming the first girl to break 17 on the relatively difficult Dade City course. Her time of 16:59.53 is a new personal best, bettering her 17:01 performance from flrunners.
Though in the shadows of the new record holder, Erika and Stolting became one of only five runners to dip under 18 minutes that day—faster than two of the state champs. Perhaps more notable though was that freshman from Maclay. Kurgatt, collapsing over the finish line, held on as tight as she could to the senior Stolting and set a big new personal best time of 18:02.96. She is certainly one to watch next year and this spring!
The team battle was tight as expected and only 12 points separated the top three teams. The 1-2 punch of Community School put the other teams in a position of needing to come up with a big one to unseat them and Holy Trinity and Maclay came ready.
Early on in the race, we noticed Holy Trinity's entire top seven in the top 20. They came out of the gate bold and ready to pull of an upset. Maclay, of course, had a one-two punch of their own that needed to be answered. The end result was a textbook illustration of why cross country is a team sport. It takes five runners and a whole of training and determination to win a state title.
Maclay pulled off some pretty good “voodoo” (borrowing a phrase from the ever-animated personality of Stolting in an interview at region) and scored 97 points with four runners in the top 20, that was just better than Community School's 104. But Holy Trinity! Coach Butler's girls came through without the front-runner of Kayla Hale they've had for the past six years. They did it with the pack.
Less than a minute separated Julie Wollrath (19:16, 10th place) and Allison Cobb (20:14, 33rd Place) and they got their 6 and 7 runners in before either Community or Maclay's 5... adding valuable points. It was a great team effort that gave the Tigers 92 points and another state championship. Congratulations!