Bang! The 2022 cross country season started fast a week ago, and within five days, the Fernandina Beach High School teams had run two meets. Head Coaches Bill Beaumont (boys) and Dave Reinhart (girls) had an efficient way to evaluate the talent in the recent record turnout of 62 harriers. A combination of 24 boys and 38 girls signed up for the 2200 season; numbers that rewarded both coaches for their determined recruiting efforts.
Voluntary summer and pre-season workouts since Aug. 1 have slimmed down the numbers a bit to 30 girls and 21 boys. They all, except for several with typical, early season muscle and tendon soreness, competed Aug. 26 in the varsity and open divisions at the Cecil Field Summer Classic. The highly popular meet drew more than 1,900 runners from schools in all four classifications.
Both the elite and varsity divisions included teams from all class size schools. The Pirates’ history of mid-pack performances at this type of large, invitational race landed them in the varsity division. History did and did not repeat itself last Friday.
The “did not” story was the Lady Pirates’ big third-place finish out of 27 teams. For the Lady Pirates, the added depth this year versus the 2021 total of 18 runners paid off big time.
That depth, explained Reinhart, “Is from a talented class of nine ninth-graders plus a sophomore newcomer, Callie Nesbit, from Atlanta. Three of the ninth-graders, Grace Scuderi, Mikalea Nichols and Adalai Kwiatkowski, already raced on our varsity last Friday.”
Reinhart expects that this performance surely surprised his district and regional rivals. “The girl’s third place has already earned them 20th place in the state class 2A rankings,” added the pleased coach.
Out of the 316 girls who finished, junior captain Aislinn Bell led the team with a time of 22:34 in 30th place, closely followed by Nesbit in 33rd place in 22:39. Scuderi was just two places back in 22:45, with Nichols in 44th in 23:06 and, rounding out the scoring, Kwiatkowski finished 51st in 23:36.
For the boys, their place of 21 out of 32 teams was a bit below historical average. However, Beaumont put the results into perspective by noting that the time differential of three minutes between his first and fifth finishers (the scoring positions) was a three-minute improvement from this same first race last year.
“Our new depth is already paying off, too,” noted Beaumont. “Our goal is steady improvement. We need to drop our times for our five scoring runners to an average of low 18 minutes. That’s about 5:45 per mile. In our North Florida region of class 2A schools, that 18:00 goal usually gets teams to the state championship.”
Unfortunately, the conditions at Cecil Field for this first race of the year kept the times on the slow side. A heavy rain just before the meet saturated the thick grassy golf course fairways. The temperature in the mid 80s plus the post-rain high humidity killed any chances of encouraging times at the usually fast venue. Senior Will Ruiz-Coria led the team with a 74th place (out of 416 finishers) in 19:45. In 124th place, sophomore Keaton Devaul ran 20:40, just one second and two places ahead of senior John Ligeikis.
Next was senior Josh Sanchez at 178th place in 21:33, with sophomore Jack Wetherhill in 268th place in 23:04. “Our team average of 21:07 looks like a pretty big gap to that low 18:00 goal,” Beaumont said. “But year after year, since I began coaching here in 2014, we have come close. In fact, in 2018 and 2020, we not only made it to the state meet, but also the ’18 team finished seventh, the best in school history. “Our process works, but it always comes down to the talent on hand. We’ll have to rely on this new freshmen class to back up our upperclassmen.” Evaluation No. 2 took place Tuesday after school at the Nor’Eastern Classic, a lowkey meet hosted by Fletcher High School on Jacksonville Beach. Eight teams competed on the low tide beach, straight down 1.5 miles directly into the unadvertised strong south wind. The return 1.5 miles was easier, but much hotter with the wind their backs.
The Lady Pirates had another strong showing. This, despite waiting on the 4:30 p.m. starting line in the sun and wind for 25 minutes for Sandalwood to show up. Immediately, the Lady Pirates took command of the race. Their seven varsity runners were already packed together by the 1/4-mile mark just behind a short string of three leaders. They continued packed up throughout the return trip and came across the finish in places 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
As the big group in yellow and blue had charged toward the finish line, they earned admiring cheers, even from the “hostile” Jacksonville crowd. Nesbit in 22:49.2 led the Pirates pack just 0.2 seconds ahead of Scuderi, who was 1.2 second ahead of Kwiatkowski, followed 1.2 seconds later by Lauren Quinn. Nichols was next, 14 seconds later in 23:06, followed by Bell in ninth place in 23.15. Senior captain Riley Sage, still recovering from interrupted summer training, managed a 26th place out of 91 runners in 26:38.
“How good we might be remains to be seen,” Reinhart said. “But, our goal is to make the state cross country championships in Tallahassee in November for the first time since 2008.” After the long delay of the first race, the boys team turned in what Beaumont termed “a dispirited effort.”
The Pirates’ sixth-place (of eight teams) score of 155 points was just one point behind Sandalwood. “That one point meant someone in our top seven failed to pass or hold off just one runner in the sprint to the finish,” Beaumont said. Again, Ruiz-Coria was No. 1 man. His time of 20:15 got him 16th place. Devaul was 25th in 21:17, followed by newcomer Bayard Storm in 46th in 23:51. Wetherhill’s 24:10 for 53rd place was one place and 1.1 second in front of sophomore Dominic Snead. Beaumont summed it up, wondering if two races in five days was too much.
“The schedule and having four runners home with the ‘new school year flu’ seemed to have left us flat,” he said. “We may be relying on those newcomers for some quality depth sooner than I thought.”
Next action for the FBHS cross country teams will be at Orange Park High School on Sept. 10.
ROY BENSON, For the News-Leader