Lakewood Ranch boys rally to finish second at 4A cross country final

With a couple of hundred yards left in the Class 4A state championship race for the core of Lakewood Ranch High School’s boys cross country team, the Mustangs raced in a pack with runners from Lithia Newsome and Winter Springs.

Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas was well on its way to the 4A championship, but the runner-up trophy was up for grabs and Lakewood Ranch had ground to make up.

Kyle Wray pushed past one crowd to finish 26th. Brice Easton joined him less than a second later in 28th. About 20 seconds later, Jonathan Reid pushed to the front of another group, which included a Newsome runner, and Andrew Dean made another pass to edge another Newsome runner by less than  2/10 of a second.

The late push gave the Mustangs their best finish in program history, a runner-up position behind St. Thomas Aquinas in Tallahassee with 177 points, edging Newsome by eight points. St. Thomas ultimately ran away with the team state title, finishing with only 82 points — nearly 100 better than the Mustangs.

“We would not have placed second if they would have held their position,” Lakewood Ranch boys head coach Bryan Thomas said. “But they didn’t hold their position. They started kicking it in, even after a whole 5K and passed a tremendous amount of people.

“Newsome had us going into the last 100 yards, but are guys started kicking it in.”

Not much time separated the Wolves’ runners from their Mustang counterparts. John Rivera, Lakewood Ranch’s top finisher in 20th, checked in with a time of 16:31.19, less than a second and one spot ahead of Newsome’s top finisher, Triston Vaira.

Rivera finished more than 30 seconds out of first and more than 10 seconds behind the Top-10 position necessary for a medal. Winter Springs’ Matthew Doyle claimed the 4A title with a time of 15:56.11.

Rivera, an 800-meter runner during track and field season, used a late burst to finish ahead of his Newsome counterpart and mirror what his teammates went on to do. Easton, Lakewood Ranch’s third finisher, was less than 10 seconds and eight places ahead of the Wolves’ No. 3. Jonathan Reid, the Mustangs’ No. 4, finished nine seconds and 11 places ahead of Newsome’s No. 4.

“It was very much a dogfight between Newsome and us for that second spot today,” Thomas said.

Saint Stephen’s boys also ran in the Class 1A championship at Apalachee Regional Park. The Falcons finished 17th with a total score of 374. Andrew Csubak led Saint Stephen’s with a 20th-place finish in 17:15.11. Fort Lauderdale Westminster Academy won the 1A team title with 111 points and Mount Dora Christian Academy’s Gabriel Curtis won the individual title in 16:17.67.

This story was originally published November 5, 2016 at 6:37 PM with the headline "Lakewood Ranch boys rally to finish second at 4A cross country final."