Today at the “Beat the Heat” meet, hosted by Woodford County High School, the meet did just that by providing an excellent early season tune-up for all three levels of cross country- Elementary, Middle and High School. The meet featured roughly 120 athletes competing from Woodford, Sayre, Lafayette as well as a few unattached runners. The weather for the race was much better than it could have been being a nice sunny high 80s day without a cloud in site.
The first race was the elementary kids’ .7 miles race going once around the loop with Everett Thompson of Woodford County winning the race. Everett finished first about 4 meters in-front of his teammate Jonathan Hall who lost his shoe with about 200 meters to go, he then-without missing a stride-picked it up and held off another teammate Marcus Watson who finished third and completed the top three sweep by Woodford, each finishing respectively in 6:29,30.6,30.9. The Girls’ side of the race was won in a time of 6:51 by Kristen Taylor of Woodford County placing her 5th overall including the boys.
The next race was the middle school combined race covering a distance of 1.55 miles or roughly half a 5k. The race was won by Thomas Hill of Lafayette who went through the mile at about 6:15, 25 meters ahead of his teammate Patrick Bailey. Hill completed the 1.55 miles strongly posting a time of 9:17.75 extending his lead slightly over his teammate Patrick who finished in second in a time of 9:38. In third was Harrison Keith of Woodford County who out kicked Tucker Hurst (4th from Woodford) in the final hundred meters finishing in 9:42. The first girl finisher was Waveney Brooks finishing in 10:53 followed shortly after by Kasey Fields at 11:04 (both girls ran unattached). Both of these girls placed 10th and 12th overall.
The final race of the afternoon was the high school combined race featuring some of the areas’ best runners in Maddox Patterson and Nicholas Waltman both of Sayre High School. This race was started by the local firemen who used their fire truck’s siren/horn to start the race which created a little confusion at the start. Despite this interestingly-fun start, the race went out as planned with Nicholas throwing down the hammer early setting the pace for everyone and coming through roughly at a 5:05 mile which was roughly seven seconds ahead of John Spencer of Lafayette. At a mile into the race it was already wide open with Nicholas about 50 meters ahead of second place then another 10 seconds back to a group of three. Sayre’s Maddox Patterson also came to do some proving as she came through the mile roughly at 6:08 showing that she too was in tip-top shape and gearing towards a championship season this fall.
Crossing the finish line first was Waltman in a time of 11:52 roughly a hundred meters in front of Lafayette standout John Spencer followed another 40 meters back by Ben Rathbone of Woodford who out-kicked Brian Rugg of Lafayette to finish third. Maddox was close on the guys’ tails finishing in 9th overall in a fantastic time of 13:27, Maddox did however have some female competition with Mia Cornette from Lafayettte High School 30 seconds behind her which could maybe result in some interesting Lexington area invitational’s this upcoming season.
Woodford County won every team title except the boys’ varsity race which was won by Lafayette with 25 points. After all of the races, a large slip-and-slide was constructed to go along with the fact that the fire department supplied a fire-hose and firemen to spray down all the runners and some parents to beat the summer’s heat.