BARTRAM TRAIL - Fleming Island High's boys cross country team has been stealthily getting better with a handful of new faces on the team and their Saturday, Sept. 27 performance at the always-tough Bale n' Trail XC Invite was a first look at the Golden Eagles legs.

"We actually all ran a little subpar last week in Georgia on a tough course against some pretty tough teams from around the southeast," said Fleming Island coach Jason Poole. "Andrew Boyer could become our first sub-16-minute runner this year and we have a great group of five runners right behind him."

At Bartram Trail, Boyer, the top Fleming Island finisher at the Class 3A championship meet on the very hilly Tallahassee state course, broke away from a four-man lead pack to open up a 30-meter lead that got him to the finish line first with a 16 minute, five second finish time.

Runnerup Jack Kline of Cornerstone Classical led a top six finishing pack that included three Creekside High runners and Bryce Motycka of Bartram Trail.
The three Creekside runners were Jackson Lafser in third—fifth in 4A last year, Eli Scharf in fourth—27th in 4A last year and Ishir Jha in sixth—48th in 4A last year.

"Those three guys for Creekside in the top six was the difference in the team title," Poole said. "Our numbers two, three and four were at ninth (Marcos Serrano), 11th (JP Strombeck) and 16th (Luke Janke)."

Creekside took the team title with 53 points with Fleming Island second at 57 and Bartram Trail a distant third at 116. At last year's championship races, Creekside was sixth in 4A with Nease eighth and Bartram Trail 11th. In 3A, Ponte Vedra was third with Fleming Island seventh. Boyer was 18th at 16:05.60.

In 2A, Bolles, seventh at the Bale n' Trail, was second last year.

Other area runners with top finishes included Daniel Johnson of Middleburg who was 24th in 17:22.9, Noah Yara of Keystone Heights who was 43rd in 17:51.9 and Arlo Kistner of St. Johns Country Day School who was 51st in 18:06.4.

Yara has been a top finisher for the Indians in recent races with teammate Ryder Thomas slowly getting up in the lead packs with Yara. 

Keystone Heights finished 20th in the boys race with 31 teams competing.

Finishers included Thomas in 80th at 18:28.5, Hunter Sheppard in 145th at 19:37.5, Ryeland Wahl in 171st in 20:01.9, Jason Parales in 218th in 21:19.1 and Oliver Miller in 279th in 24:25.7.

In boys team scores, Middleburg was 12th, St. Johns was 16th, Oakleaf was 17th, Keystone Heights was 20th, Clay was 26th, Ridgeview was 27th and Orange Park was 28th.

In the girls race, with the top two finishers under 18 minutes, Fleming Island's Brooke Reynolds finished seventh as top area finisher with Ridgeview's Emily Turner just 20 seconds behind her in 10th; 19:42.5- 20:11.7.

Both seniors, Reynolds and Turner look to have good shots at a state meet berth with improving times each week. Reynolds was 25th in the 3A state race in 19:19.90.

In first place, Seven Rivers Christian's Mary Summers won with a quick 17:44.3 to out surge Bartram Trail's Avery Hartley by just 12 seconds as the pair ran shoulder to shoulder for much of the two-lap race.

A third area runner with a shot at a state meet spot is St. Johns Country Day School's Kate Staten, just a freshman, who paced with some of the best in Florida to finished 16th in 20:41.8.

Staten was second Spartan finisher behind graduated Rebecca Stratton (now at Georgia Southern University) with a 43rd place finish in the 1A state race in 20:43.30. The Spartans girls teams were all underclassmen minus Stratton.
Other area finishers included Middleburg freshman Lauren Rosset in 23rd in 21:11.6, Clay sophomore Annaliese Hovda in 74th in 22:32.7, Orange Park's Briley Mulder in 90th in 23:12.7, Oakleaf's Kellyn Dusanic in 99th in 23:33.7 and Keystone Heights junior Olivia Griffin in 163rd in 25:05.8.

In the frosh-soph race, Keystone Heights seventh grader Ryleigh Thomas finished second in 21:40.3 with St. Johns Classical sixth grader Payton Carpenter fifth in 22:44.4. Keystone Heights freshman Hunter Gray was 17th in the boys frosh-soph race in 19:10.9.

At the Alligator Lake Invitational in Lake City, Keystone Heights' boys finished 23rd out of 33 teams led by Thomas in 51st in 18:28.1 and Hunter Gray in 78th in 19:02.4 and Hunter Sheppard at 101st in 19:27.6. 

In the girls race, Keystone Heights finished 21st out of 27 teams led by Thomas in 79th in 22:51.9 with Melody Tyre 87th in 23:05.6.