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| OPEN DIVISION -- UMS-Wright Preparatory School -- Friday, April 4, 2008 @ 3PM
INVITATIONAL DIVISION -- St. Paul's Episcopal School -- Saturday, April 5, 2008@ 1PM
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Mobile Distances - Morgan and McGee run US#1s
Summaries by SteveU and Arthur Mack, Photos by John Nepolitan
 | Catholic High BR gets the boys 4x800 win at the tape
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Boys and Girls 4x800s - By Arthur Mack
If someone had said that Pine Forest (Pensacola, Fla.) was going to run away with the competition in the girls’ 4 X 800, then there would have been a few curious looks. After all, it was a loaded field, with Mountain Brook (Ala.) Collins Hill (Ga.) and Hoover in the mix.
But Pine Forest did just that, getting a strong leadoff leg from Jobenita Davison to win convincingly with a 9:33.32 over Collins Hill (9:44.12) and Hoover (9:58.22). It was a personal best for the Pine Forest quartet, which included Darroneshia Lott, Crystal Wachob, and Altelisha Taylor. However, Davison said later that there were some concerns coming into the competition.
“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” she said. “I thought I took off too fast (1:03 first 400 in a 2:21), and I tried hard not to lose.”
As it turned out, Mountain Brook did not run its top three middle distance runners – Madeline Morgan, Marie Demedicis, and Catherine Diethelm – in this relay, an event where it won the Nike Indoor Nationals title last month. Instead, they ran fresh in the 2-mile, 800, and 1600, respectively, and the 4x400 (Demedicis and Diethelm).
The boys’ 4 X 800 was an entirely different event. Mobile’s UMS-Wright, led off by Robert Willett’s blazing leadoff leg (1:56+), controlled the race for the first three legs until Navarre, Fla., made a bid for the lead, along with Hoover, Ala.
Meanwhile, Catholic-Baton Rouge, which was floundering in fifth for the first three legs, made a bid for the lead with about 120 meters to go. Catholic anchor Julian Parker was locked in a duel with Navarre anchor Hamilton Boykin for the lead, and drove past Boykin in the final few yards for the win.
 | Svoboda finally catches and passes Gilmer
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Thanks to Parker’s 1:55.2 split, Catholic—which included Phillip Primeaux, Barrett Miller, and Rance Guerin—mounted the podium as champions with an impressive 7:58.67. Navarre was not too far behind in 7:59.12 while Hoover was third in 8:01.36.
“We knew coming it was going to be like this,” Parker said. “I knew there was a lot for me to do, and I had to give it all I got. The last 300, I just had to use my kick.”
Boys and Girls Miles - By SteveU
Pass Christian sr Cory McGee entered the meet Saturday not only as the defending champion, but as the only record-holder in the meet, having set the mile standard last year with her 4:54.25. Once again, meet director Steve Schoenwald had put together a great field, including Emily Reese GA, Virginia Hine TN, and the aforementioned Diethelm. There was also Amanda Winslow of Collins Hill HS in Suwanee GA, who had not broken 5:00 for 1600 before, but was 2nd behind Morgan in the NTN Southeast meet last fall.
Reese, still recovering from her trip to the World XC in Scotland, did not run. McGee’s strategy had been planned somewhat around racing Reese, but she pretty much ran a typical McGee race anyway: Hard and leading from the gun.
The first 440 of 69 strained the resources of the field, but the top contenders hung in there. The next two 440s were 74 (2:23) and 76 (3:39). Hine had begun to fall back, but Winslow and Diethelm stayed close. Down the final backstretch, Diethelm made a bid for the lead, but McGee – not often known for late-race gear shifts – responded with a push with 200 to go. Diethelm fell back, but Winslow pushed and pushed all the way to the tape. It was McGee in 4:50.67, destroying her meet record, and Winslow in 4:50.88, destroying her PR by more than 10 seconds. Hine (4:55.01), Diethelm (4:55.82), and Corinth MS’s Katlyn Will (4:55.99) followed to make it 5 under 4:56.
“I originally thought I’d be racing Emily Reese here,” said McGee. “That was a big part of coming here, to get competition from her.”
As for the final push, she added, “I heard her (Winslow), but I didn’t think she’d make that move. But I knew I had more in me. It’s hard to get at that until someone’s pushing you.”
The boys mile was expected to a battle between NIN mile runner-up Patrick McGregor of Hoover AL and defending champ Miles Svoboda (Pope HS, Marietta GA). But McGregor had no energy and no legs and was never in it. Instead, it was St. Paul’s Lee Gilmer hammering the early pace on his home track.
It was a good pace – 64-2:09-3:13 – but Gilmer was in just a tad over his head and doing all the work. Just before the bell, Svoboda took over and cranked out a solid 63 last 440 for the victory, a PR 4:16.74 to Gilmer’s 4:19.36.
Svoboda, who lowered his PR from a 4:16.20 1600 last year, praised Gilmer’s pace. “It was good; it set us up for a quick time,” he said. “This is one of the meets I come to run fast. I was happy to break through.”
Boys and Girls 800s - By SteveU
The stable of girls standouts at Mountain Brook AL are used to a lot of relays and multiple events at many of their meets, so Coach Bill Echols likes to take a meet like this and allow them to run individual events fresh. The effect was perhaps most obvious in the girls 800.
 |  | | Vestavia Hills distance winners: Daleassandro in the 800 and Duckworth in the 2M |
Echols has been trying to develop freshman Marie Demedicis’s confidence in her second lap, so he recently had her take out an 800 in 72. She smoked the second 400 in 64. That patience training helped her as she ran at or near the front of a solid, but unspectacular group that passed 400 in 66.3 – a solid, but not oxygen-draining pace.
Around the next curve, Demedicis surged away like she was just starting the race. The rest of the field could only watch helplessly as she quickly gained three seconds, then four. With a second lap of 65.0, she won by nearly five seconds in a PR 2:11.35.
“It was a nice change,” she said. “I usually don’t get to run it fresh.
“Coach and I have been working on the third 200,” she added. “Then in the last 200, you’re able to reach for whatever you have left.”
The boys 800 started with three of the original top seeds – Jake Stephens, Marcelis Lynch, and Daniel Edmunds – all having scratched or not in the race for various reasons. Stephens and Lynch were both under 1:53 here last year. So the pace for the first 400 was a very modest 58, with William Cosby of Mundy’s Mill GA leading.
Hoover’s Nick Hayes took over in the middle of the second 400, then Cosby retook it. But he who moved last would get the spoils and Vestavia Hills AL’s Marshall Dalessandro had the best last 100. His 1:57.39 was .34 ahead of Cosby and .60 up on Hayes.
Boys and Girls 2-miles - By SteveU
 |  | | Mountain Brook winners: Demedicis dusted the field in the 2nd 400; Morgan had to overcome Cali. |
Madeline Morgan vs. Malia Cali was one of the most anticipated matchups of the meet. It would be the first big deuce of the year for Morgan, the Mountain Brook AL jr, and a rare chance to run it fresh. She had impressed people all winter in the mile (where she was NIN runner-up and got down to 4:52) and the relays, after an XC season that saw her win NTN individually. Cali, a Hammond LA (St. Thomas Aquinas) soph, had rocked The Armory with her front-running 2M win after just missing Foot Locker Finals during a revelatory XC campaign. The field also had several other talented runners, including defending champ Jennifer Dunn.
The matchup did not disappoint – except maybe for the fact that Cali ran too fast early for an optimum time. Rocketing from the line like she only had a mile to run, or less, the Louisiana dynamo opened in 69, spreading out the field.
Morgan kept within 30 meters, though, and the pace quickly slowed to 79-81-80 for a 5:09 first mile. Cali did an 81, but then her pace slowed a little more and Morgan was closing on her, then finally passed her during the sixth lap. The Alabama star held 79-80 pace to the finish for a 10:29.26 PR, while Cali had to settle for 10:39.64.
“I’m disappointed,” said Cali, afterward. “Yeah, I went out a little too fast. I have to work on that.”
Morgan was pleased with the time and the win. “Last year I was 2nd and ran just over 10:40, so I was hoping to get in the 10:30s or under.
“I wasn’t expecting for it to go out that fast,” she added. “My original plan was to go out in 75 and then stay close to that … I had to improvise. One thing I’ve learned since NTN is that it helps to draft sometimes and I don’t have to always be the one to set the pace.”
Although the rest of the runners were practically in another race, St. Paul’s local favorite, Mary Carlton Johnston, emerged from the field with a fine effort for 3rd in 11:06.80.
In the boys 2-mile, Vestavia Hills AL’s Austin Duckworth was that pacesetter most of the way. In the end, he was almost run down by a trio of challengers, led by B.T. Washington’s Eric Larson, but he held on for the win in 9:28.89. Larson had to settle for second in 9:29.40, with two others following in 9:30 and 9:31.
Mobile COC Index |
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