Lakewood Ranch sweeps Manatee titles at Tri-County Championship

If Hurricane Matthew hadn’t threatened Florida last weekend, Lakewood Ranch’s Manatee County championship streak probably would have come to an end.

The Mustangs were scheduled to travel to Tallahassee for the Florida State Cross Country Invitational Oct. 8 for what would have been their regular-season finale — a final tune-up before district meets begin this week. The county championship would have slipped from relevance in light of Lakewood Ranch’s postseason hopes. Instead, the Mustangs skipped the long road trip north and pushed their regular-season finale back to Saturday’s Tri-County Championship at G.T. Bray Park, which also served as the Manatee County championship.

“We probably wouldn’t have been here,” Lakewood Ranch head coach Kristina Bratton said. “A lot of our kids probably wouldn’t have run today. I’m glad that we could still bring home the title. We’ve won like every single year.”

The Mustang boys and girls were the top finishers among county teams, extending the girls’ county title streak to 11 years and the boys’ to five. Lakewood Ranch has won both titles during all four of Bratton’s seasons.

The Tri-County Championship in Bradenton also crowned champions from Sarasota and Charlotte counties, plus a tri-county champion. Sarasota won its county and the overall titles with 53 points from the boys and 44 for the girls. The Mustangs were the tri-county runner up with 59 points for the boys and 60 for the girls. Englewood was the top Charlotte County team in both fields, eighth with 221 points in boys and fifth with 134 in girls.

“I came in hoping that we would still continue our streak of winning the county meet,” Bratton said. “The field didn’t look as stacked like it usually is in the past, which I was surprised, but with districts coming up it’s understandable, so our kids got to chill a little bit, and just relax and not push it so hard.”

Manatee’s boys and girls both finished second in the county — and third overall — with 99 and 89 points, respectively. Saint Stephen’s rounded out the top three with 112 points for the boys and 138 for the girls.

Among individuals, IMG Academy runners won both races. North Carolina-native Chandler Bergeron edged Sarasota standout Sage Lyons with a time of 19 minutes, 44.60 seconds to win the girls championship. Patrick Dougherty topped the boys race in 16:58.60. Dougherty, a Georgia native, didn’t set a personal-best for the first time this season, but won by more than 11 seconds.

“I’ve PRed every time I’ve stepped on the line,” Dougherty said. “Came out here, got the win. It was good.”

IMG didn’t compete for a county championship, but all four of its runners logged top-six finishes.

Andrew Csubak also gave the Falcons an individual county title, finishing the 5K in 17:10.20 to take third overall. Jonathan Reid and Andrew Dean finished fourth and fifth, respectively, for the Mustangs to round out the top three in the county.

The girls field was topped by Hurricanes. Raquel Lespasio finished third overall in 19:56.20 and teammate Allison Ecker crossed the finish line in a second later. Mason Ingallinera was Lakewood Ranch’s top girl, finishing 10th overall and third in the county with a time of 21:18.50.

This story was originally published October 15, 2016 at 8:57 PM with the headline "Lakewood Ranch sweeps Manatee titles at Tri-County Championship."