Winfield Mile, 1 January 2004

Liberty High School made their presence known at the Winfield Mile,
with 48 runners total (counting students and their parents).

Stick Sets Record at Winfield Sherry Stick and Carl Henn captured the women's and men's divisions, respectively, of the Winfield Mile, held on New Year's Day. The race, run on Old Liberty Road from beautiful downtown Winfield, a bit of an oxymoron, to South Carroll High School, experienced a record turnout of ninety-four runners, aided by the presence of thirty-six runners from the Liberty High School indoor track team.

Club member Stick, who won this race several times and held the women's record when she was known as Sherry Esposito, showed that married life has not affected her running ability as she finished seventh overall. Her time of 5:07 broke her previous record by eight seconds and gave her a fourteen second margin over running partner and South Carroll alumna Becky Alvarez, whose time of 5:21 was tenth overall.

Liberty runners Kelly Davis, Kaitlin Rodriguez, and Caitlin Riebau--though far behind the leaders--staged a very competitive battle among themselves for the next three spots. Allie Reed was the fastest of either sex in the 10 and under category, and Dee Nelson, the oldest female runner in the race and who had run two races the day and night before, finished as the fastest masters runner.

The men's division was dominated by the same people who captured the Class II state cross-country title for Liberty in November. Running as a pack until the end, the Liberty runners captured nine of the top ten men's places, with masters runner Bob Buerger, who paid the entry fee for all the Liberty runners (if he hadn't paid, might he have won the race?), the only exception.

As he did for most of the cross-country season, Carl Henn, named by both the Carroll County Times and the Baltimore Sun to the All-County first team, broke away at the end to win by seven seconds in a time of 4:54. A few seconds behind him, and running a second apart, came All-County second team members Frank Sisolak, Jimmy Ridder, and Bryan Mull, followed by brothers Pete and Rush Lester.

Buerger finished as the fastest masters runner, with Eric Gyaki of Annapolis and Roger Kilgore, who serves as Dee Nelson's driver, finishing as the top 50's and 60's runners. Danny Austin was the fastest in the ten and under category.