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FSK Boys Team Captures IIA State Title
Arthur Leathers, Katie Hursey Finish in Second Place
11 November 2006.
Six Boys and six Girls Cross-Country teams competed in the 2006 State Cross-Country meet on Saturday, November 11, held at Hereford High School in northern Baltimore County. Nine individuals finished in the top fifteen places in three of the races, receiving medals for their efforts, and the boys team from Francis Scott Key received a trophy for finishing first in the class IIA boys race.
With all county schools being in class IIA and IIIA, they participated in four of the eight races conducted under dry but somewhat warm conditions in the morning and slightly cooler ones in the afternoon.
In the girls class IIIA race Katie Hursey from North Carroll attempted to retain the title she won last year as a junior. Although she was undefeated this year, she had lost a race on this course as a junior. It became apparent early in the race that she and Liz McCarter from Mt. Hebron would be the top two finishers, as they quickly moved away from the rest of the field.
The combined effects of weather warmer than Hursey would have preferred and a reduced week of training because of an ankle injury she suffered during last week's regional meet slowed her pace from what would have been expected, and when McCarter surged during a flat portion of the course during the second mile, Hursey did not respond. McCarter maintained a ten second lead through the hills on the return portion of the course, until Hursey surged in the last two hundred meters.
An obviously fatigued McCarter fell just prior to the finish line, literally crawling across the line to finish the 5K distance in 19:50, while Hursey finished second in 19:51, some thirty-five seconds slower than her winning time last year. Both runners will be members of the cross-country team at Syracuse University next fall. Hursey indicated that she would be happier with the cooler weather to be expected in northern New York state.
Westminster finished tenth in the girls IIIA team standings, and North Carroll finished eleventh. In the boys IIIA team standings Westminster finished sixth, and North Carroll finished thirteenth.
In the girls IIA team standings Century finished third, behind Howard High School and host Hereford High School, while South Carroll finished fourth, Winters Mill finished eighth, and Liberty finished ninth. Century was led by Carly Reed, who finished sixth, and Kirsten McGovern, who finished seventh, while South Carroll was led by Emily Powell, who finished fourteenth.
The county's best showing occurred in the boys IIA race, in which Francis Scott Key finished first, South Carroll finished third, Liberty finished fourth, and Century finished fifteenth.
Liberty entered the race as the two-time defending state champions, although graduation losses and several injuries had effected their overall strength. Atholton High School from Howard County, which finished second to Liberty last year, returned Andrew Revelle, defending two-time individual champion. Key's team had captured the county meet, in which its top five runners finished first through fifth, and the regional meet prior to the state meet.
After the first mile Atholton's top runners, Revelle and Graham Bazell, were running together in the first two places, while two-time county champ Jared Welsh and Arthur Leathers were running in third and fourth for Key. With a half-mile to go, Revelle had an insurmountable lead, and Bazell was in third place. Leathers, however, had moved into second, and Welsh was in fourth. For Key Zach Holtz was eleventh, and Jordan White was thirteenth, sandwiching the third Atholton runner, and Colin Fearns, Key's fifth runner, was ahead of the fourth and fifth Atholton runners.
In the last stretch before the finish line, Leathers and Welsh captured second and third places, respectively, and with Bazell falling to fifth, they effectively neutralized Revelle's first place finish. With Holtz moving to ninth, White capturing thirteenth, and Fearns finishing twenty-fourth, places all better than the same finishers on the Atholton team, Key won the title by finishing twenty-four points ahead of Atholton. Led by C. J. Naper's eighth place finish, South Carroll finished third, while Liberty finished fourth, and Century finished fifteenth in the team standings.