Baker boys, Ocean Spring girls repeat in Mobile

Jay Day of Mobile Baker runs splendid early season time of 16:03.75 in heat and humidity to win Invitational race; Ascension Episcopal's Kirsten Landry takes girls race in 18:43.1

By ARTHUR L. MACK

MOBILE, Ala. —By all accounts, Saturday's Mobile Challenge of Champions offered a successful start to the cross country season for a wide swath of the Southeast. 

Mobile Baker AL, using a strong race from Jay Day, defended its invitational boys team title, while Ocean Springs MS defended its invitational girls crown at Langan Park.

Day's winning time of 16 minutes, 3.75 seconds over the 5K course in hot and humid weather helped the Hornets to a close 28-33 win over Brother Martin of New Orleans for the team title. 

Day outkicked Hunter Appleton of Brother Martin of New Orleans in the final 800 meters to win the race. Appleton and his teammate Hayden Courrege were second and third, but Baker placed five runners in the top 10. Parkway of Bossier City, Louisiana was third with 75 points, while Ocean Springs and Trinity Presbyterian School of Montgomery AL rounded out the top five with 126 and 130 points, respectively.

Baker coach Paul Agnew was excited about repeating as team champion. He felt going in that it was going to be close. 

“I told our number six guy, with about 800 meters to go that Brother Martin's number five guy was 30 meters in front of him, and he made a strong finish to beat him,” he said. “The scores were down to counting points, and Will McQueen (who finished 10th) holding off some runners, and Matt Winn (who finished sixth overall in 16:57.74) came up big for us.”

The Hornets were also paced by a seventh-place finish by Jonathan Davis, who ran 17:05.93. Baker averaged 16:52 per scorer, while Brother Martin averaged 16:57.

Ocean Springs' girls scorers were more spread out, but the Greyhounds were able to place enough of them in the top 20, defeating Mobile's McGill-Toolen 75-110. Baker and Fairhope were third and fourth with 124 and 130 points respectively, while Ascension Catholic of Donaldsonville, LA rounded out the top five with 139 points.

Ocean Springs was led by Sadie Smith, who finished sixth in 20:21.20, while the next Greyhounds' runner, Andrea Wheeler, was 10th overall in 20:47.18.

Kirsten Landry of Ascension Episcopal in Youngsville, Louisiana was the top finisher with an excellent early season time of 18:43.14. Presley Miles of St. James in Montgomery was second (18:57.23), while defending champion Grace Jensen of McGill-Toolen was third (19:10.43).

Even though Jensen was the first scoring runner, not only for McGill-Toolen Catholic, but for the meet, the next Yellow Jacket was only 12th in scoring, and the number four runner scored only 35th.

“It was a highly competitive field,” Ocean Springs girls coach Tim Sayers said. “Anytime you come over here, with McGill-Toolen, Baker, and even with Ascension Catholic, you saw the times they were running today. It was a good opener for us.”

In the Invitational boys race, Day and teammate Nathan Whitton took the early lead, but were promptly joined by Brother Martin's Appleton, Courrege, and Benjamin Crowley. Those five runners battled for the lead, making it essentially a two-team race. Appleton took the lead with less than a mile to go, and it appeared that he would run away with the win.

Day however, kept the pressure on, staying with Appleton and in the final 400, regained the lead and sprinted to the finish.

“It was really, really tiring,” Day said. “I didn't underestimate them (Brother Martin) early because Coach Agnew told me how good a team they were. Overall, I'm glad that we pulled it through. The whole race, I was trying to stay at a smooth, comfortable pace, and in the last 800, I made a push. I didn't have it in me, but I remembered by grandfather telling me I was running for God. I wasn't running for second because he (God) is first in all things.”

“I was proud of how Jay ran that race,” Agnew said. “He's getting so smart as a runner. He saw that he was doing a lot of work, and he sat down on the pace a little bit and let some strong runners from Brother Martin come up and let them lead a for little bit, and smart enough to know in that last 800 meters to find that extra gear. It was just a great tactical race on his part, I think.”

Jensen, Miles, and St. Paul's Isabel Valenzuela (who eventually finished fourth in 19:19.28) were the early leaders in the girls race, but Landry took her time and eventually worked her way to the front just before the two-mile mark. From that point on, it was smooth sailing as she sprinted to the finish.

“It wasn't really about the heat and humidity, but it the first race of the season, and I wanted to go out and see how I feel and how my training's been going during the summer and getting my legs ready to roll for the rest of the season,” Landry said. “I felt very relaxed the first part of the race, and I just kept picking it up.”

Landry felt the strain of the last stages of the race, but thinking about the rigors of practice enabled her to get through that portion of the race.

“I was tired and I was really hot, but I was thinking about every workout I was doing during the summer, and I said if I can do it during practice, I can do it now,” she said.

Brother Martin won the Open Boys Division with 64 points, while St. Thomas More of Lafayette, Louisiana won the Open Girls Division with 44 points. Individually, Semmes, Alabama's Mary G. Montgomery's Caleb Smith won the Open Boys race in 17:46.17, while Ashling Osness of Long Beach (Mississippi) High won the Open Girls race in 20:36.49.