Saturday’s invitational in Dade City is called the pre-state race for a reason. It’s held on the state meet course and many teams with designs on competing in the final race of the year made the trip to Little Everglades Ranch to get an idea of how they match up against the other top runners and teams in the state.
The results for area runners were encouraging.
The Lakewood Ranch girls were third among Class 3A teams in the girls elite race, Saint Stephen’s freshman Hannah Howell placed eighth in the girls small schools race and the Manatee boys team finished 12th out of 25 teams in the boys large school race.
Tallahassee Chiles, a 3A school, won the girls elite race with 44 points. Another 3A school, Fort Walton Beach, was fourth with 162. Ranch was fifth overall with 199 points.
Mustangs freshman Kristin Zarrella was 20th overall in 19 minutes, 27 seconds. Fellow freshman Olivia Ortiz was 27th in 19:35. Devin McDermott was 35th in 19:46. Natalie Novak was 57th in 20:19 and Emily Wray was 60th in 20:21.
Howell, who ran that course during last year’s girls 1A meet, was eighth in 19:51.
Chris Owens paced the Hurricanes, finishing 27th in 17:14. He was followed by Nick Algozzine, 41st in 17:34, Jordan Washer, 47th in 17:39, Chris Pate, 73rd in 17:59, Tyler Russell, 87th in 18:19, Eric Steinke, 132 in 19:06, and Kenneth Lanier, 153 in 20:05.
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