Lakewood Ranch boys track and field team wins Pre-State Meet at IMG

A day before the first practice of the 2017 season, as they sat in coach Mark Napier’s classroom, it was made clear to members of the Lakewood Ranch boys track and field team just how much potential they possessed.

That preseason meeting set the tone, and the Mustangs showed what they could be capable of this postseason on Saturday by winning the team championship at the Pre-State Meet at IMG Academy with 108.5 points. Miami Braddock was second with 82 points and Flagler Palm Coast’s 62 points were good enough for third place.

A trio of underclassmen claimed individual titles for the Mustangs. Junior Harry Barthelemy won the high jump with a height of 6 feet, 5 inches before running a leg on Lakewood Ranch’s second-place 4x400 relay team. Sophomore Jonathan Reid won the 800 meters with a time of 1 minute, 59.52 seconds, and juniors Drew Butler, Nicholas Napier and Graham Todoroff swept the top three spots in the pole vault.

Senior John Rivera, who recently made an oral commitment to compete at the University of Mississippi and will sign a national letter of intent with the Rebels later this month, was edged by Parkland Douglas senior DaQuan Bailey-Brown in the 400 by two-hundredths of a second and finished second with a time of 48.89 seconds. Classmate Brice Easton was second in the 3,200 meters, and junior Andrew Dean placed third in the 1,600 meters.

At the same venue 11 months earlier, the Mustangs’ girls track team claimed the Class 4A state championship, and the Mustangs were 26th in a crowded boys field, in which 15 points separated champion Lyman from 12th-place finisher Sanford Seminole. The 2016-17 postseason for Lakewood Ranch and county rival Manatee gets underway with the Class 4A-District 8 meet at Seminole High School in Pinellas County on April 19.

“I think our boys have a good shot to open some eyes and say, ‘Hey, we’re here to compete,’ ” said Napier, who was named the Class 4A girls state coach of the year and girls coach of the year for all classifications by the Florida Dairy Farmers last year. “It’s been a long road on the boys side. We didn’t get our first (state meet) qualifiers until two years ago. During my first five years here, we didn’t send anyone to the state meet. This year will be the pinnacle of that. A lot of it is riding on John Rivera and he’s kind of the leader of this team, but we have some young ones coming up.”

Although he finished second in the 400, Rivera set a school record, as did Barthelemy with his championship mark in the high jump.

“Everything that we do in practice contributes to the meets, even small meets like this,” Rivera said. “We’re trying to win. Everyone wants to win, but you have to believe to win. If you don’t believe like everyone else believes, it’s going to show. We believe and we feel that it’s going to show on the day of districts, during regions and during state. If we keep believing, everything is going to come through.”

The meet’s most dominant athlete was Lakewood Ranch senior and Vanderbilt University signee Sophia Falco, the 2016 Class 4A state champion in the long jump who led the Mustangs to a runner-up finish behind IMG in the girls team standings. Falco beat runner-up and freshman teammate Ava Klein by 0.61 seconds for first in the 100 with a time of 12.08 seconds, claimed the triple jump by more than three feet with a distance of 39 feet, 6.5 inches, and earned the gold medal in the long jump by 13 inches with a distance of 18 feet, 10.5 inches.

The Lakewood Ranch girls, whose 74 points were 43 behind IMG, had four athletes place in the top five of the pole vault. Junior Karen Lyvers easily won the event by clearing 9-6.25.

Bayshore was 11th among the 22 girls teams that scored points in the meet with 22 points, Braden River was 18th with 10 points, and Out-of-Door Academy finished tied for 21st with five points.

Saint Stephen’s was seventh among the 19 boys teams that scored points in the meet with 32. Falcons senior Andrew Csubek was second to IMG’s Patrick Dougherty in the 1,600 and finished two spots behind teammate Letherio Jones with a fifth-place finish in the 400. Classmate Josh Stevens was fifth and sixth, respectively, in the discus and shot put.

IMG Academy was 11th in the boys team standings with 28 points, Braden River was 14th with 14 points, and Bayshore rounded out the scoring field with 1.5 points. Braden River freshman Jameire Hayes was fourth in the 400 and ran a leg on the Pirates’ third-place 4x800 relay team.

This story was originally published April 8, 2017 at 8:36 PM with the headline "Lakewood Ranch boys track and field team wins Pre-State Meet at IMG."