Kent and Buckheim Steal The Show at Gulliver Invitational
Sophomore Olivia Kent (right) and junior Tyler Buckheim had Coach Stacie
Bouchard shaking her head after the Girls Varsity race at the Gulliver
Invitational,
held at Miami's Thompson Park on Wednesday. Sometimes that’s not a good
thing, but this time, the 3rd year coach was shaking her head
in astonishment.
Olivia slashed 1:08 off her lifetime best with an impressive 4th place finish in 21:56. The time is a KWHS Sophomore Record, and makes Olivia the 2nd fastest girl in the school’s CC annals. Katie Gonzalez’s 2002 School Record of 21:03 is the only other sub-22 clocking. Olivia’s big improvement comes on the heels of another big Pr just five days before, when she lowered her CC best from 24:05 to 23:04 at the Homestead Invitational.
Tyler crushed her own PR in racing to a 6th place finish. The former holder of the Sophomore Record (23:36), chopped 1:14 off that mark when she crossed the line in 22:22. That time ranks her 5th all-time for Key West.
The girls team placed a solid 4th out of 8 schools, and not far behind third place Archbishop McCarthy, a District 8-2A rival.
Senior captain Dillon McLean was third runner for the Conchs, running a heat-slowed 27:07. Sophomore Arianna Bacle continued her strong improvements, backing up her Homestead performance with another PR, nearly breaking into the sophomore Top 10 with her 28:29. Junior Elizabeth King was 5th runner for Key West, with freshman Marlene Thurber just a few seconds behind. Marlene's 1:41 PR (30:14) made her the 10th fastest freshman in KWHS history.
Freshmen Jannessa Giannetti and Colleen Cushing also produced huge PR's, with Jannessa taking more than five minutes off her previous best, and Colleen cutting hers by nearly three minutes.
The boys team lacked the up-front fireworks on their female
counterparts, and the breakthrough performances that they showed at
Homestead, but nonetheless had a solid showing. Senior captain
Mike Eder once again outlegged rising freshman star Zack Harden (left)
by a handful of seconds. A conservative early pace effectively put
paid to any PR assaults, but both runners still came close to seasonal (MIke)
and lifetime (Zack) bests, with their respective 19:19 and 19:26
clockings. Senior Jason Patchett-Gillis, in just the third race of
his life, duplicated his Homestead race, posting an almost-identical
20:06.
After the top three, the pecking order saw some changes. Senior Steve Pool, in his first season of cross country, rallied for a PR of nearly two minutes with a 21:37 run that overtook senior Mason Marshall, freshmen Cale Hartle, and senior Garrett Ullom. Patrick McCarthy posted a PR 21:20 in the JV race that would have made him Key West's 4th man.
The boys team placed fifth overall.
Both Harden and Hartle showed some disappointment after the race, but both essentially repeated their performances from Saturday, which were big movers. Zack followed up his 19:19 freshman record with a 19:26, and Cale followed what was a 1:45 improvement (to 21:47) with a carbon copy 21:53. Both young runners showed that their Homestead races were not flukes, and that they had moved to the next level for good.
The next race for Key West will be the huge FLrunners.com Invitational on Friday the 29th at Ed Radice Park in Tampa. It will be a nighttime race under the lights of the large soccer complex. The Conchs have raced at Radice before -- the State Meet and the FLrunners race were held there in 2002-2004 -- and most of the school's fastest times have been recorded there. Between the hot competition, the cooler evening temperatures, and the flat-and-fast turf, good things can be expected.