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| Track & Field |
| 1998 XC |
1998 Foot Locker Championship
The West is the best (at least the girls)
and other varied observations
From: [email protected]
Sent: Monday, December 14, 1998 1:46 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Foot Locker Nat'ls and West Group
California Preps close out season at Foot Locker Nationals
by Doug Speck
Some of California's super group of 1998 Cross-Country stars had their season end up at the Foot Locker Nationals Saturday, December 12th, at Orlando, Florida's Oak Ridge Golf Course in Disney World.
The results were very pleasing, with the West Girls' group recording the second best team score ever with their 25 point winning total, powered by the 2-3-6 of Lauren Fleshman, Sara Bei, and Trina Cox. Felicia Guiliford (NM 4th) and Abby Miller (Nv 10th) helped with the scoring, with 25 points enough to defeat the rest of the nation put together on this day. Katie Moon (Wy 13th) and Golden stater Allyson Marquand (16th) closed out the California domination.
Combining the top five scorers of the top finishers from all other regions gave the
rest of the country a total of 30, showing that "the west is the best."
Well, maybe most of the time, but it was nice to be able to brag
here today.
On the Boys' side Adam Tenforde (WA 3rd), Regional Champ Josh Rohatinsky (Ut 5th), Ian Dobson (Or 7th), joined with Californian's Josh Spiker (14th) and Idaho's Jed Barta (17th), with Celedonio Rodriguez (18th) and Arizona's Juan Reyes (20th), as the Western group had a 46 point total for second behind a strong Midwest total of 28.
The Girls' race came first. The course proved to be deceptively tough, with the runners aimed through most of the rough parts of the course, and purposefully taken over areas that had a number of brief "ups and downs" that constantly broke up consistent rhythm. The Girls' winning time would end of up being the slowest ever in the twenty years of the championships.
Looking at the course beforehand one would have doubted that seriously. I was told by long-time Florida prep coach Fred Finke as I entered the park on Saturday morning that it would run deceptively slow with the lay-out that had been changed since last year, and he was sure right.
The Girls' pack was out at 5:32, with defending champ, Erin Sullivan (Vt), only sixth in the Northeast Regional, close to the lead, and taking over after that point. Lauren Fleshman was at the trail end of the lead pack there, but most of the western team was back in the pack. Later they would comment that racing at Mt. SAC in the Regional had kind of put them in the mode of sitting back a bit at the start, then moving strongly the last two miles over the hills there.
They would do some moving here also, eventually racing away to the dominating team score discussed above. Anyway, out front, Erin Sullivan was away to the races, with the Western blue-clad pack, led by Sara Bei, Felicia Guliford, and Trina Cox, moving up to challenge the early leaders, the Northeast, in their Black singlets.
Bei was fully sixteen seconds behind the leaders through the mile, with the undefeated
Northern Californian eventually moving up to challenge Fleshman for second during the last
mile. The two Californians battled, but Sullivan ran through the finish with a forty meter
margin before they could
establish contact, with Fleshman nipping Bei for second.
Guliford and Cox, who always seems to run a perfectly paced race, slammed the door on the rest of the nation with four in the top six! It was a great run by a great group who seem to possess all the characteristics of true champions.
Boys
Ian Dobson (Or), a tall, smooth strider with seemingly great ability (and coached by
early 1980's female qualifier here, Marnie Mason), set the early pace in the race. The
first mile mark came by at 4:52 over the interesting terrain, with Jorge (say it
"George") Torres, from Illinois as the only four-time qualifier for these
championships and runner-up last year, making
two planned moves over the next half mile.
Northeastern stars Andy Powell, Franklyn Sanchez, and Louis Luchini tried to first match his move, with Powell (12th) and Sanchez (13th) evenutally fading to surprisingly low placings.
Meanwhile, Adam Tenforde (say it "ten-fordy"), not pleased with his effort in the Western Regional, had planned a big late-race move, which he put into action after two miles, eventually knocking Torres' lead from eight to three seconds before hitting the wall himself. Luchini came back to take Adam for second, with Tenforde showing real courage in his tactics. Guess where he is going? Adam has signed at Stanford!!!
Joshua Rohatinsky was never too far behind the action, ending up fifth, and is the top returning athlete for next year with that placing. Ian Dobson is the next returning junior with his fine seventh place run, as Californians Josh Spiker (the fourth overall returnee--worth getting excited about 1999 already!!!!), Idaho's Jed Barta (17th), Celedonio Rodriguez (18th), and Arizona's Juan Reyes (20th) closing out the West running.
Jorge Torres was joined by brother Edwardo (6th), 4:12 miler Jason Hartmann (Mi-4th), Hartmann's Rockford (Mich) HS teammate, soph Dathan Ritzenhein (8th), and Joe Barnes (Oh-9th) as the Midwest totalled only 28 points to take this half of the meet.
Closing Comments
It was definitely warmer during the Boys race, with the sun out and the humidity really rising off the grass. Hartmann (4th) who is from Michigan, where they have had a very mild winter, replied that he almost collapsed at the finish from the conditions, with the placings of season-long Northeast stars Powell (12th) and Sanchez (13th) unexplainable except for the effect of the mild humidity and temperatures in the 70's.
Again, Rohatinsky and Dobson are the top underclass returnees from this race, with Spiker #4 overall, and Reyes a junior from Arizona.
Bei and Guliford are the top underclass returnees on the Girls' side, so, as we mentioned above, 1999 could be super!!!
The action from the December 12th Championships can be seen on ESPN's "Race of the Month" on December 22nd at 2:30 pm Eastern Standard time (that's 11:30 am just before noon) here out west, with it also available on December 26th at 1:30 am (that's 10:30 pm our time).
Foot Locker National Notes
 | the Foot Locker group, led by Jeanine Lavin-Zocks (she just married Adam Zocks) did its usual super job of hosting the young people and their families once again this year. The accomodations at the Disney Resort Yacht Club were fantastic, with the planned banquets on Friday and Saturday evening grand! |
| Foot Locker brought in former champions Ellen Lyons, Brent Steiner, Kira Jorgensen, and Connie Jo Roberson. Part-sponsor Adidas had stars Todd Williams, Jennifer Rhines (who just married former La Habra HS star Terrance Mahon), Alan & Shayne Culpepper, Laura Henes, and Mark Croghan in attendance. The group made a fine panel presentation Friday evening, spent time with the athletes, and added to the race day atmosphere with their presence. This "bridging" of the generation of runners is so very significant, with most who had been at Foot Locker while preps (above champs plus Williams, Rhines, Alan Culpepper, and Henes (formerly Laurie Gomez) verbally indicating the importance of the Foot Locker series in their development to a national and international level. |
Poignant moments
| The emotion on Sara Bei's face as she gives Lauren Fleshman a hug after the finish (I'm sure they will include it in the ESPN show tape). It's been a long and glorious soph year for the Montgomery HS star, with one understanding the ability of a picture to tell us a story of a couple thousand words as the young star gives into the emotion of the moment. |
| Allyson Marquand and her feelings as she realizes after she finishes that this may be her last Cross-Country race as the Uni (Irvine) flash heads to Stanford on a soccer scholarship that may preclude this sport in the Fall. |
| Abby Miller, ever the over-achiever, lamenting the fact that she will probably not have any attention now from college coaches after placing 10th overall. (Sure, tenth in the whole country as an eleventh grader with five ahead of you graduating seniors and with Abby never having a grade below an A since the second grade!). |
| Felicia Guliford, a true junior high student at Gallup JHS in New Mexico, unassuming as can be, placing fourth overall as the only ninth grade athlete in the entire meet. |
| Trina Cox, who has come across as the world's happiest person after her super-well paced efforts in the Western Regional and her sixth place effort here, then getting to the airport and finding she left her plane ticket home back at the hotel (Continental was very, very understanding and it was all straightened out very quickly) |
| Adam Tenforde, stating to the coaches how upset he was at himself near the end in the Regional, here planning and executing a late move that had him come close to stealing the race. Adam will be heard from in a big way in the future, with his body type and running style appearing to favor longer than the prep distances. |
| Josh Rohatinsky, fifth here and the top eleventh grader, after a month back being so sick at the finish of a post-state Utah All-Star Meet, where he finished sixth (!) and was in such bad shape with low blood iron that the paramedics wanted to take him to the hospital. |
| Ian Dobson, following in the trail of former Klamath Falls stars Tracy Garrison (2nd Boys race 1983) and Marnie Mason (1984 Girls 8th placer), with the latter his current Coach (now Marnie Mason-Johnson), loping along with the early lead, looking very comfortable there. A tall, economical runner (6'2 and 140), Dobson looks capable of eventually tackling Garrison's amazing 8:17.1 3000m school record, as Ian was 8:50 in the spring of 1998 as a soph! |
| Josh Spiker, winning awards in the miniature golf tournamount, adding to his super junior season as the country's number four finishing underclass athlete here, with his fourteenth place. |
| Celedonio Rodriguez, not even his own League Champion this Fall, continuing to amaze with his progress to this competition, ending as among the top twenty in the entire nation with his excellent eighteenth place effort. "Celie" indicated that he felt a little confused in the race, sensing he had more power than he was able to produce (but then he had never traveled to the east coast, raced when his body told him it was 7:40 am after spending two nights in a strange bed with all the Foot Locker weekend excitement). He has come a long ways from the 9:43 3200m runner he was last spring! |
| Juan Reyes, dog tired after the long weekend, taking off solo down a long airport corridor in Houston, probably ending up somewhere eventually in West Virginia on a piper cub if Coach John Norton had not had a pang of conscience and gone in search of the Arizona star. |
It was a great group that closed out a great year in the greatest
competition available in our great sport.
Enough for now-----
