Lakewood Ranch takes one of the fastest relay teams in the country to the state championship

The Lakewood Ranch High School 3,200-meter relay team always had national bests lingering in their minds, but it wasn’t until the Mustangs headed to Tallahassee for the FSU Relays that someone was ready to acknowledge it.

Andrew Dean, John Rivera, Brice Easton and Jonathan Reid had just breezed to a win at the event in 7 minutes, 55.18 seconds when a writer from flrunners.com pulled them aside for an interview.

“How fast do you think you can run?” he asked.

“We should be able to go 7:50,” Dean blurted before Rivera jumped in.

“Uh, I think we’ll probably go like 7:51, 7:52,” the anchor hedged. His teammates couldn’t help laughing at the exchange.

A week later in Gainesville, Rivera charged down the final straightaway at the Pepsi Florida Relays and looked up at the clock with about 50 meters to go. The clock seemed to be ticking slower than usual — 7:42, 7:43...

“Whoa,” Rivera remembers thinking. “We’re going really fast.”

Their final time: 7:45.58. It wasn’t just their best time of the year, it was the best time by anyone in the country. Dean had been peeking at times on MileSplit.com to track how Lakewood Ranch’s efforts compared to the nation’s other top times. Once the Mustangs were willing to acknowledge how close they were, they couldn’t shake the idea.

“That just put it all in perspective right there,” Rivera said. “We had that in our heads the entire time.”

Lakewood Ranch’s best time has since been eclipsed, but the Mustangs will be among the favorites to win a state title — both in the relay event and as a team — at the Class 4A championships Friday and Saturday. The 3,200 relay, which won the Class 4A-Region 2 championship Saturday, will run for a 4A title at 11 a.m. on Saturday at IMG Academy.

The relay team members give Lakewood Ranch its best hope for earning a team state title one year after the Mustang girls did so.

Rivera, Reid and Dean qualified in the 800. Rivera and Reid qualified in the 1,600. Rivera was the region champion in both events. Their quest for a state title will be supplemented by jumper Harry Barthelemy, and throwers Sam Jackson and Noah Oxley. Barthelemy will compete in both the long and high jumps, Jackson will compete in the shot put and discus throw. Oxley will compete in the discus.

Last spring was the first time this particular iteration of the 3,200 ran together. Even then it wasn’t until the final weeks of the regular season when Rivera finally recovered from a foot injury. The Mustangs reached the state championship before finishing ninth.

The foundation, though, was in place. Rivera dropped enough time to sign a National Letter of Intent to Mississippi as one of the most coveted 800 runners in the nation. Pair Rivera’s prowess as the anchor leg with two underclassmen with room for growth and Easton, whom Lakewood Ranch head coach Mark Napier identified as perhaps the hardest individual worker on the team, and competing at a national level was a realistic goal.

“I just had a feeling about them,” Napier said. “They’re hard workers, they’ll do what they need to do, they’re smart. They had an opportunity to be one of the fastest teams in the country.”

While Class 4A is filled with serious contenders from Manatee County — Sophia Falco won four region titles for the Mustangs as a sprinter and jumper, Manatee’s 400-meter relay is the two-time defending state champion, and Hurricane thrower Seth Walter will be the top seed in the shot put — Lakewood Ranch’s 3,200 is further ahead of its competition.

“The entire year,” Rivera said, “we wanted to be the No. 1 team in the country.”

This story was originally published May 3, 2017 at 5:34 PM with the headline "Lakewood Ranch takes one of the fastest relay teams in the country to the state championship."