Sunday Distance Report - Great Weekends Completed by Cabral, Higginson - and more

By Matt Soja

Boys 2 mile

After anchoring the Glastonbury DMR to the gold on Friday, and winning a bronze in the 4x1 mile Saturday, Donn Cabral set his sights on the individual glory in this event. For the first mile he sat patiently on leader James Grimes of New Jersey, as they knocked off 34- and 35-second laps. After going through the mile in 4:38.3, Cabral took over the lead and would never relinquish it. With 600 meters left, he and Ben Johnson from New Mexico (who finished 6th at Footlocker finals) pulled away from the chase pack, and on the last lap the Connecticut junior’s leg speed proved too much to handle for Johnson. Cabral won the national title in 9:10.56 with Johnson finishing two seconds back.

Cabral ran his last 220 yards in 30.0, his last 440y in 62.0, and the last 660y in 1:35.6

Afterwards, Cabral, who is also the current New England champion in cross country and indoor 2 mile, said he did not feel very tired from his previous two races this weekend. He knew if he ran his best race today he would have a good shot at winning, and that he did, improving his personal best from the New England championships by 5 seconds. He did not actually plan on letting it come down to a kick, but wanted to lead with five laps to go and put the competition away. In fact, despite his 4:15 1600m speed, he never lets sitting and kicking be his strategy. Today he simply wanted to hit under 35 seconds per lap, and even though it did not exactly work, he was satisfied. Outdoors, he would like to break 9 minutes in this event and maybe race a good 5000m.

Girls 2 mile

Ashley Higginson is the kind of a runner who gets tired two days after a race instead of the day after. So it was fortunate that her 4:48.9 on the 4x1 mile relay anchor did not come on Friday, or we might not have seen the Colts Neck NJ senior’s spectacular display of front-running, even pacing, and relentless drive that brought her an individual national crown today.

Higginson went to the lead right from the gun, pulling a string of several other contenders behind her, including Emily Jones MA, Allison Sawyer NY, Shelby Greany NY, and the national 5000m champion from Friday, Marissa Treece MI. As Higginson kept running 38- and 39-second laps, the parade behind her slowly began to thin out. At the mile mark, reached in 5:09.7, only Treece and Jones were with her, and one lap later it became a two-woman race with Jones losing distance.

But Treece determinedly hung onto the Jersey harrier even as the leader gradually began to pick up the pace. When Higginson really dropped the hammer with 400 meters to go, however, she assured herself the victory. Blazing the last quarter mile in 73 seconds, Higginson won in 10:16.75, a US#1 this winter and a New Jersey state record. Treece hung onto second with a US#2 time of 10:22.96.

Ashley’s 220 yard splits were as follows: 38.6, 38.3 (1:16.9), 38.0 (1:54.9), 38.5 (2:33.4), 38.4 (3:11.8), 39.4 (3:51.2), 39.2 (4:30.4), 39.3 (5:09.7), 39.4 (5:49.1), 39.9 (6:29.0), 39.6 (7:08.6), 38.9 (7:47.5), 38.2 (8:25.7), 37.9 (9:03.6), 36.7 (9:40.3), 36.4.

Elated with the victory, the future Princeton Tiger said that breaking the state record was her lofty goal at the beginning of the season, although she was not sure she could get it. In fact, she improved her converted 3200m personal best by an astonishing 13 seconds with today’s performance. She admitted that despite feeling a little bit of pressure as the favorite, this was one of the best races of her career so far, but she also hoped that her perfect race is still to come in the future.

Asked about her even pacing, she said she does not like to go out too fast and prefers to run evenly because it feels easier, especially in the middle part, when it is difficult to concentrate and not slow down. Higginson attributed her negative splits at the end to the fact that Coach Jim Schlentz trains her team to always finish strong. As for the outdoor season, her main goal was to break 10:20, but that might have to be readjusted now. She added that she just wants to prove to herself she can keep improving in the spring as she did in the fall and winter. The next time we will see Ashley racing against the nation’s best will be most likely at the Penn Relays 3000m, where she intends to defend her title.

Boys Mile

Charles White moved from Garden City, New York, to Colorado merely two months ago. This weekend he made a return trip to the Empire State, and it proved a golden comeback for the Littleton junior. He took full advantage of the slow, tactical affair, letting New Yorker Chris Williams set the pace as the pack hit the halfway mark in 2:11.0. There was some shuffling up front, with Indiana’s De’Sean Turner taking the lead on the fifth lap and Kevin Gill from Massachusetts on the sixth, but White sat right on their shoulders, ready to pounce. And on the back straightaway of the seventh lap he did so, never looking back again. Blasting a 59.3 last quarter mile, White captured the national title with a 4:14.23, destroying the competition by more than 3.5 seconds on his last two laps.

Afterwards White admitted that sitting and kicking was his pre-planned strategy, and he executed it perfectly. Despite the very slow first half, his speedy finish allowed him to improve his personal best by more than one second. New to running at altitude, he said that training one mile above sea level has its tangible benefits, but he found New York track to be more competitive than in his new state. He set his outdoor goals at 4:08-4:09 for the mile and 1:51 for 800m. He is currently looking at Indiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, and a few other colleges, but he still has a lot of time to decide.

Girls Mile

Just as with the boys, this was a kicker’s race. But unlike the former, there were only two girls up front with a realistic chance of winning. Caroline King took the lead from the gun, and Callie Hogan followed her closely, as the two New York seniors stayed that way for the next 1450 meters. King ran the first quarter mile in 1:10.5, the first half in 2:25.5, and three quarters in 3:41.6, so the pace was gradually slowing down. Hogan sprinted into the lead off the penultimate turn of the race, and despite King’s brave efforts to come back, the Bay Shore star would capture the national title in 4:50.35 to King’s 4:50.45, US#4 and #5 marks, respectively.

Hogan, who next year will run for Villanova, also anchored Bay Shore to the distance medley gold on Friday with a 4:53.9 carry. Before that, her previous personal best was a 4:56.28 from earlier this winter, so today was a major breakthrough. She did not quite expect to win the race against a strong field, but she was hoping her kick would carry her to victory as it did Friday. Despite winning the individual crown, her focus remains on the relays, and she hopes to put a good showing on at Penn in one of the relay events.

Boys 800

When everyone was still talking about how the defending champion Nectaly Barbossa from Washington State held off the late-charging Jamar Jones from Philly in the seeded heat, Canadian Andrew Heaney was busy pulling the biggest upset of the meet, running a stunning solo 1:50.62 in the unseeded race and beating Barbossa’s time by more than 2 seconds! The Ontarian went out hard, in 53.7, and just barely missed the meet record of 1:50.55 by Michael Granville, which is also the US national mark. One can only wonder what he could have run against better competition.

The Pennsylvania state champion Jones led the first two laps of the seeded race, hitting the 400m mark in 55.4, with Barbosa then taking over and holding off Jones on the last straightaway. Yet his time was not nearly enough to defend his title.

Girls 800

Bay Shore won the DMR crown Friday, and their anchor Callie Hogan captured the individual mile crown Sunday morning, so it only seemed appropriate that the DMR lead-off Sarah McCurdy should add to the Suffolk school’s bonanza at the 800m. Her task became even easier after Caroline King and Brittany Sheffey chose to scratch from this event. McCurdy’s only serious challenge came from New York freshman Brianna Welch, who took the lead from the gun and went through the first lap in 31.5. But as Welch slowed down on the second circuit, and the junior from Long Island took over the lead, it was a one-woman race. McCurdy hit the 400m mark in 1:04.3 and 600m in 1:37.1, cruising to win her first individual national title in 2:10.07, with another New Yorker, Emma Miller-Bedell, moving up to second spot in 2:10.75

McCurdy ran a 2:08.99 last spring but had barely broken 2:13 this winter, so this was a major improvement and an indoor personal best. She said she felt really great on the starting line and was pretty relaxed during the race. She added that the day off on Saturday helped her recover from the relay, so she did not feel sluggish.

Bay Shore’s unusual triple crown (800, mile, DMR) is only the latest jewel in their impressive collection from recent years. It will be interesting to see if they can break their national and school record in the distance medley of 11:33.42 outdoors.

NSIC Home Page