2015 Brooks Twilight Recap
Predicting what the weather will be like in early September around the Memphis area is like the lottery… you have plenty of choices and getting it right, well, it's like winning the lottery! Not something easy to do for sure! This year at the Brooks, the heat was back and I'm not talking about the weather this time. Tagging a well-used phrase around here, it's not the heat, it's the humidity that'll get you! It was thick for sure, it wasn't even morning and I could already see my footprints in the grass from the dew that was settling on the grass. I settled in thinking the racing was going to be slow from that too. I should have known better… big mistake to think the competition would be affected!
The middle school girls started off with a bang (uh… yea, from the gun I guess). E.T. Booth's Sydney Runyan, an eighth grader with some impressive stats took off fast at the start and continued through the end. Sydney finishes a couple seconds off the meet record but still a blistering pace for a middle school athlete. She ran 6:59.54 and last year's winner and current record holder Felicity Bost was second in 7:21.04. That's the race that started this night! It was a tight race for the team title here too with Madison MS winning with 47 points which was only 9 ahead of Houston's team at 56 points. These two really were close as both had their top 5 finish in the top 25 overall in the meet. Madison's Lydia Snopek was their top finisher coming in 7th overall in 7:40.07. Pretty impressive start for sure!
The boy's middle could have actually been a prelude to what we were going to see in the Boys Varsity match. Silas Winders of Henry County finished ahead of the field in superb fashion running a 6:08.11. Henry County didn't enter a full team for the middle school division but these Winders family are pretty much a team in themselves (as you'll see in the varsity review). Ryland McCullough was second in 6:12.99 (Nashville Youth Athletics) and Jonesboro Arkansas's Damion Brown third (6:33.54) in a tight race with Germantown's Alex March (6:35.61). Nashville Youth Athletics put the gauntlet down on the team standings here though scoring 28 points and over 100 ahead of second place White Station. They had all five of their team in the top 10 and even their sixth finisher came in at 32nd place!
Ok, this time I'm talking about the boys before the girls for the high school class. The boy's race was touted as a fast one with the amount of talent coming into town, especially with the nationally ranked Lafayette MO team entered. But one runner, Javan Winders (Henry County) was coming off a PR run the week before and didn't look a bit tired or worn from the humidity of the evening either! The first half of the race was pretty much three of the Lafayette boys and Javan setting the pace. And that pace was timid by any means. This Missouri team knows how to race too and with three of them at the front, you could tell they were feeding off each other and looking very strong. But then Javan started pulling ahead and although Devin Meyrer stayed with him for a while, you could tell Javan was determined. There wasn't a record set here today, which no one expected one with the humidity, but Javan took control and finished well ahead with a 15:25.80. I'm just wondering as the season progresses and the weather gets a little cooler, how fast this young man is going to be! Devin got the runner up spot in still a blistering 15:43.66.
As scripted, the Lafayette boys still were the cream of the crop for the Team standings with a clean 48 points. Their top five runners finished in the top 25, with their fifth runner, Nassim Ouffatole, at 25 (26th overall) in 17:06.05. The fourth runner ran 16:44.19 (Tommy Laarman), third was Dylan Quisenberry (16:06.82), and second runner was Alec Haines in 15:58.98. West Plains team, led by Jacob McCrackin (16:46) was second overall and Pearl MS team was third at this hot and humid night in Memphis. The first local finisher was Houston's Chris Rayder in 16:38.41. Not a bad time at all and that helped Houston take the fourth team spot and the best local area team finish. I knew coming into this meet that the Houston girls team was strong but didn't realize that boys team has got some pretty good potential there too with this finish.
On the girls side there was also a surprise for me as I didn't realize also how strong the Lafayette girl's team was. They lead off the Varsity girl's race with a 1-2 finish as Anna West took top spot in a fast 18:04.25 and teammate, Sarah Nicholson, go the runner up spot in 18:22.08. When Anna entered the stadium for the finish, she looked as if she was ready to run a few more laps. She looked strong and fast and has taken the top spot in the Missouri rankings with her performance here! Actually there 1-2 finish also has them in the 1-2 rankings. Good job to both! Starkville MS athlete Kate Mattox was third overall in 18:41.50 (which also is a Mississippi top spot too!). This race wasn't a giveaway by any means, this year if you wanted to get in the top 10, you had to really earn that for sure! Speed really was the word of the day!
The first local finisher was Ella Baran who came in 5th overall with a very fast 18:49.41. That started the Houston team to end up with the best local placed team at the meet. Houston's 71 was just five points behind the Lafayette Missouri's 66 points. Lafayette's 1-2 finish at the meet certainly gave them a head start but both teams had runners in the top 25 scoring positions! Another tight team race and another huge point for how competitive this meet has become over the years!
A race this big probably has as many stories as athletes running. So here's one for you: Two of the athletes running in the college level have run against each other since their middle school days. Matter of fact, Savannah Jordan (Memphis) and Abigail Topham (Central Arkansas) were teammates in their Cordova middle school years. These girls have run against each other several times starting from those early days in middle school. And it would go back and forth as to who would win. Savannah probably was better in the middle distances and Abigail a stronger distance runner. But still, they met several times. They've raced against each other those several times with only fractions of a second separating them. And at others, a little further apart. Occasionally at cross country or track meets, they would look over the entry lists to see if they were running against each other. Knowing that if both were in the race, they'd have to work hard to better the other. And at the Brooks Twilight Saturday night, these two runners are in the field again. Another competition together. This time a little higher stakes and a heck of a lot more experience under their belts. From a couple years in middle school competing as teammates, through four more years in high school as competitors, they end up at the Brooks Twilight racing against each other again with Savannah starting her college career and Abigail going into her second year in College. For fans of cross country, how can you not love this sport when you see this happen!! Oh… who won… you'll have to scan through the results to find out… to me, it didn't matter, I just enjoyed seeing them cross the finish line continuing their running careers.
And speaking of college, the last two races of the meet were the College level races. The women started out their 5K distance with a couple of Alabama teammates taking to the front pretty quickly. Well, that front pack was pretty big for a while with Alabama, Ole Miss, MS State, and a couple of Arkansas team running shoulder to shoulder. Then it came down to two Alabama teammates leading the way, Rachael Reddy and Katelyn Greenleaf and Two Ole Miss athletes making up a front pack. And a second group with three of the Alabama girls packed together with Arkansas Little Rock and Mississippi State. As the race went on, Rachel (Alabama) took a commanding lead and broke the tape in 17:06.26. Her teammate Katelyn was second in 17:13.69 and then two Mississippi athletes finished shoulder to shoulder in 3rd and 4th (Shelby Brown in 17:17.05 and Mary Alex England in 17:17.16). With their top five finishers all in the top 10 scoring spots, Alabama took the team title with an average time of 17:30.81. Mississippi's team was second, Miss State third and Harding fourth overall. There were 249 finishers for the college women this year and a very strong field again!
The boy's race kind of looked like a mirror of the girls with two Alabama racers finishing in a 1-2 finish. Antibahs Kosgei won with the only sub 20 time in 19:49.75 and teammate, Robbie Farnham-Rose took the runner up spot in 20:07.89. Antibahs pretty much lead the whole time and looked like the heat and humidity was easily no barrier for this speedster. Andrew Monaghan of Miss State was third in 20:12.67. And so it wasn't a mirror to the girls finishing list, Maryville University's Anthony Allen came in with a 20:16.63 to finish fourth overall. Mississippi took fifth overall when Derek Gutierrez came into the stadium and finished strong to get 20:18.48, just behind Anthony. This was a tough race and the four mile loop course was a good start for these college athletes! The college men title was grabbed by Alabama to finish the women/men sweep of the meet. Their 37 points was well ahead of Central Arkansas who had 99 points and ten ahead of Miss State. Although central Arkansas had only one top ten finisher, their second through fifth finishers were close, like seven points apart (19, 21, 23, 26). That's impressive.
And so goes the 2015 Brooks Twilight Cross Country meet. Every year this event gets better. If you get into the top ten at this meet, regardless of the divisions, you can put a big feather in your cap! You can't just coast here and expect to run well, you have to push yourself, push your teammates, and go your limit to be in the top at this meet. Great work by all the volunteers and especially CBU Coach Bill Hoffman. It was great to see FloTrack covering the meet, although my guess is the Los Angeles based rep probably is glad to get back to the low humidity of the west coast! Brooks makes for a great sponsor (I happen to run in Brooks shoes… so yea, I'm biased for sure!). The VIP dinner the night before at Fleet Feet was very nice! The course was fast. Altogether, this is what makes this one of the best Cross Country meets around!!
See you on the track… and the grass!
Coach Ted