State meet has arrived for cross country teams

For four area cross country teams, as well as several local individual athletes, Saturday’s state cross country finals in Dade City has long been viewed as the grand finale all had hoped to take part in.

But having now advanced through district and regional competition to arrive at their sport’s grandest stage, no longer are Saturday’s finals viewed as a dream-like scenario, but instead as one last challenge in need of toppling.

“The key right now is keeping up the intensity,” Niceville coach Sherman Eller said. “You work so hard … This is what counts.”

Fort Walton Beach (boys and girls), Navarre (boys) and Niceville (boys and girls) will send their teams to the Class 3A meet while individuals from Choctawhatchee will also compete in Saturday’s meet.

South Walton’s girls’ team will participate in the 2A meet while Freeport will send individuals into the fray at the 1A meet.

For the Vikings, whose girls finished second at last week’s region meet and whose boys finished third, the excitement pulsating through the entire program was nearing fever pitch just days before the meet.

“We’re excited,” Vikings’ coach Lissette Moller-Fields said. “All their hard work has paid off.”

The Vikings enter Saturday’s meet as one of only three schools to boast a boys and girls team inside the top 10 in the state, with Fort Walton Beach currently sitting at No. 4 on both sides. Bishop Kenny is ranked fifth in both boys and girls while Winter Park is second in the state on the girls side and 10th in boys competition.

“That just shows the strength we have on both the boys and girls side,” Moller-Fields said.

Fort Walton Beach’s boys have been paced all year by the duo of Luc Lawrence and Matt Bevil while the girls team has greatly benefited from the addition of transfer Holly Stanton, who last week at region led all area runners with a sixth-place finish.

Niceville, which finished fourth in the boys race and sixth on the girls side, also received promising efforts at region that Eller hopes will lead to even greater things.

Marsel Mosley, who turned in a time of 19:02 at regionals for the third-fastest time for a freshman in 3A, continues her late-season surge while the Eagles boys team answered the call after a less than stellar run at district.

“We went in with a plan and both teams executed that plan, bottom line.” Eller said. “Right now, the mindset is they all feel with the training we’ve done that they can do better.”

Navarre coach Thomas Lintz has the Raiders looking to once again earn a top 10 finish. Last season, Navarre’s boys finished 10th.

“We’ve been in the top 10 the last few years,” Lintz said. “We seem to come up with five pretty good kids every year. It hasn’t been the same group every year, but we seem to have kids come through and run hard enough to help us get there.”

Robert Mann has led the way for Navarre this year and did so once again last week in finishing ninth at regionals.

Individually, Choctaw’s Hakeem Tarpley will be competing in the 3A meet after finishing 14th a week ago.

In 2A, the South Walton girls team will look to punctuate the season on a positive note. Perhaps aiding the Seahawks is a comfort level with Saturday’s course that coach Greg Niemiec said can only help soothe any feelings of restlessness that may occur moments before the biggest meet of the year.

“This is a course we’ve always done really well on,” Niemiec said. “It’s the fourth time they’ve run it in two years and we tend to have really good times on this course so we’re looking forward to going there again.”

Freeport’s Michael Graziani, after turning in a time of 17:23 to finish eighth at regionals, will compete in the 1A meet as an individual. Graziani’s berth into the state finals marked just the third time ever a Freeport boy has qualified for the state meet.