I almost don’t know where to start in talking about last week’s race.  The late change in location, the spooky fog, the unbelievable competition, the incredible performances by South.  So many story lines, so much drama.  This XC nerd was geeking out last Saturday.  But let’s just get to the races.

The Boys

I’m not sure how things looked in Cumming, but as the Championship Boys race took off at 8:00 a.m., the fog was thick and soupy in Fairburn at Chattahoochee Hills Eventing.  With the decision to move the race from Foxhall Sporting Club to this location, there was a lot of uncertainty about what that would mean and while the meet organizers assured us of a fantastic venue and a great course, what we could assess from our view near the start line was...nothing.  But the gun went off anyway and 20 seconds later the boys disappeared into the mist, never to be seen again.  Oh, wait, I think that’s the plot of a horror movie.  Have no fear, all the runners did return and quite speedily, I might add, as the leaders blazed through the first mile in 4:35.

I won’t describe any of the groups behind those top 7 as a chase pack because, let’s be honest, no one was catching them, but Nate Verska was sitting in a good spot as he looked to build off of his big PR from the last race.  And while Ben Bergey was only 20 seconds behind Nate at the mile, in a race this competitive that meant he was sitting well outside the top 100 as they passed by us near the end of lap one, before rounding back near the start and heading out for the final loop.  Sam Gullo was just a few seconds off Ben’s pace and before you could wonder where the rest of South was, all four remaining runners (Owen Wargo, Sebastian Elisan, Devin Schmuckal & Pujith Veeravelli) came by in a tight group..

The lead group continued to hammer, again back into the fog where they started to string out a bit after the 2-mile.  Kamari Miller of Marietta led the way as they made the final turn to the nice downhill stretch to the finish line, but Sam Rich of Catawba  Ridge (NC) pushed him all the way as they took the top two spots, both running an impressive 14:55.

Back to our South runners.  Conventional wisdom says someone running in the low 16’s who already posted a big PR this season is only going to see improvement come in small increments.  But luckily Nate wasn’t subscribing to that thinking as he maintained pace over the final two miles and dropped 27 seconds off his PR from last meet, running an amazing 15:48.  And I know I mentioned how competitive this race was, but nothing demonstrates this more than knowing that Nate’s awesome performance netted him a 32nd place finish.  Meanwhile, Ben Bergey spent the last lap picking off runners as he knocked 16 seconds off of his last meet PR, coming in 92nd at 16:31.

I was very excited by what I saw from the remaining 5 runners, as there was only 17 seconds separating South’s 3rd man from our 7th.  You had Sam Gullo with a strong 17:03 (141st) followed by Owen Wargo (148th - PR) just outkicking Sebastian Elisan (149), Devin at 17:11 for 154th and Pujith closing it out in 175th.  If these guys can keep running as a pack and pushing each other, that would bode well for South as they get into the final stretch of the season.

In the end, 5 runners with PR’s is a pretty solid day.  At this meet, which MileSplit declared as perhaps the most competitive in Georgia this century, South took 22nd as a team.  But while you may not have walked away with any hardware, there certainly should be some pride and confidence in how well you competed.

The JV boys race saw many fast times as well.  They finished 16th as a team, led by Adam Zorko’s 17:58 52nd place.  There were 10 PR’s among the JV boys.  And a special shoutout to Andy Harbinson, who wound up as the only South runner in the 2nd JV race.  And if that wasn’t bad enough, when I saw Andy heading into the 2nd lap, he was firmly stuck in no man’s land, left to run on his own.  But he hung in there and still managed to run a big-time PR.

The Girls

The good news was the sun finally started to burn off some of the fog as the Championship girls race got underway and we got our first good look at the beautiful grounds of Chattahoochee Hills.  The bad news was, if you wanted more finish line drama, this was not the race for you.  What we witnessed instead was a close-up view of what elite running looks like.  Jenna Hutchins of Science Hill HS in TN is one of the top high school runners in the country and she showed everyone why as she bolted to a 20 second lead by the end of mile 1 and only pulled further way as the race went on, earning a dominating victory, finishing over a minute ahead of second place and running a remarkable 16:40.

But despite the beatdown Jenna put on the rest of the field, impressive performances continued, especially for South.  There is no doubt Carmel Yonas has had an outstanding sophomore season, firmly taking on the mantle of South’s #1 runner and being competitive in every race, with her worst overall finish being 4th at the first meet.  Despite that, she had not yet approached her fastest times from last season.  But if you dig a little deeper, you’d see that Carmel didn’t even break 20 minutes until the fifth race last season and then really turned things on from there.  So I guess we should have seen it coming that last Saturday, the fifth race of this season, it was time for another breakthrough.

Coming around after the first lap, Carmel was sitting right around 20th place, pretty impressive in a competitive race like this.  So imagine the thrill as Carmel rounded the final turn and kicked to the finish in 10th place.  Yes, in a race with some of the fastest runners in the Southeast, Carmel ran down 10 of them over the last two miles.  And as for her time...how about beating her fastest time from this season by over a minute and a half and knocking 52 seconds off her PR with a fantastic time of 18:13.

How strong was Carmel’s performance?  The last two meets, Cara Joyce from Atlanta International School has pulled away from Carmel over the back half of the race.  Saturday, Cara ran her fastest time of the season by nearly a minute, and Carmel beat her by 30 seconds.

Anyway, enough about Carmel, we have more awesomeness to talk about.  While the whispers about whether Izzy may beat her big sister sometime have probably been put to bed for now, Izzy continues to have an amazing freshman season.  She has run a PR in four of the five meets and Saturday broke the 20-minute barrier for the first time, running 19:40, good for 75th place.

Molly Hanlon is also having a fine freshman campaign.  She said as she went through the first mile, she heard them call out her split as 6:45 and she thought she felt pretty good so she should speed up.  It’s probably for the best that she had no idea she had actually run a 6:03 so didn’t even think about how fast she was going.  And if you are wondering who was most shocked at her finish time, you should watch the race video on MileSplit (she literally ran the last 20 meters with her mouth wide open in disbelief).  She knocked 59 seconds off of her PR with her 19:55.

It was good to have Emma O’Connor back (she had missed the last two races due to college testing) and the month off of racing didn’t faze her as she ran a season’s best 20:04.  Siena Brennan is another newcomer this year that just keeps getting better.  Her 20:08 knocked 1:40 off her best time and the tight finish of South’s 2-5 runners really propelled them up the team standings.  MileSplit’s virtual meet before the race had South finishing in the 20’s as a team.  Much like their PR’s, South blew that out of the water, finishing 7th.

And I don’t want to take anything away from South’s 6th and 7th runners either.  Janisha Patel also PR’d by a minute and Madi Butler dropped 1:20 off of her’s.  Face it Madi, based on that performance, you are probably stuck on varsity!

The JV girls also had a great day.  Led by Emily Barnes’ 73rd place finish, South matched the JV boys 16th place team finish.  Nearly everyone ran their fastest time of the season and 6 set new PR’s.  

So how do I sum up the Asics race?  28 new PR’s for South.  The girl’s went from unranked to 2nd in the 7A state rankings.   As worried as I was about them moving to a new course, I have a feeling that the runners will be begging for it to stay here in the years to come.

Up Next - Coach Wood Invitational

We’re continuing the early AM bus call portion of the schedule with another drive southwest of Atlanta, this time to Whitesburg on Saturday, 10/17.  Competition is usually pretty strong for this meet as well and the course is a simple two loop path that can’t be described as anything other than flat and fast.  We will get our first look at Lambert since the start of the season.  In fact, every ranked 7A school except Denmark will be there, so this will be a great test to see where South stands heading into regions.