Coral Reef boys finish second in Class 4A as five runners take home medals

Five Miami-Dade athletes took medals and the Coral Reef boys captured the Class 4A runner-up trophy at the state cross-country meet in Tallahasse on Saturday morning.

Coral Reef’s campaign was led by senior Carlin Berryhill who ran 15:56.92 on the 5K course at Apalachee Regional Park, finishing 70 yards behind the 15:44.83 posted by the winner, Sarasota senior Adam Bradtmueller.

The winning team in Class 4A scored 90 points, while Berryhill and the Barracudas totaled 149. Ferguson was fifth in the team standings with 203 points while Columbus was 16th with 360.

The Apalachee course isn’t mountainous, but it’s more rolling than typical South Florida terrain. Ransom Everglades senior Lauren Archer shrugged off the hills, though.

“This is my eighth race here on this course,” Archer said.

“I’ve been running this course since my freshman year, twice a year. It’s a really nice course; the footing is nice. We’ve been doing hill workouts on bridges and trails, so we prepared for this. Maybe not as much as people in north Florida, but I thought we did a pretty good job.”

A good enough job that Archer ran 18:43.16 to finish fifth in the 2A girls race, leading Ransom Everglades to third in the team standings with 118 points --just one place away from a trip to the podium behind the team champs from Bolles and the runners-up from Pine Crest.

Gulliver Prep eighth-grader Natalia Varela also medaled in the race, placing fourth in 18:40.41. Varela was the only Gulliver athlete to qualify for the state meet.

It was bright, warm, and humid by the time the 2A girls ran, and heat may have been more of a factor than hills in that race.

Up front, Bolles sophomore Caitlin Collier had led most of the last mile, then collapsed just short of the finish line. While Collier took 15 seconds to crawl the last few feet, Pine Crest senior Alyssa Pujals zipped by to win in 18:21.16. After a high school career of training and racing in the Miami area, though, Archer wasn’t very concerned about the heat.

“We’re definitely used to it, nothing new,” said Archer. “It’s usually cold when we come up here, but this actually worked out for us because we know what to do.”

In Class 1A, the Westminster Christian girls were also just one spot away from the podium. Led by eighth-grader Kyra Wells, who finished 24th in 20:29.30, the Warriors placed third with 177 points. The Circle Christian girls took the team title with 101 points, and Maclay was second with 146. Miami Country Day’s girls were 16th in the team standings with 377 behind their top scorer Kitty Simmonds, 57th in 21:33.32.

Merritt Island senior Steven Cross ran the fastest time of the morning, winning the Class 3A boys race in 15:30.63. The Belen Jesuit boys put two runners in the top ten of that race, with sophomore Joshua Collins taking third in 15:55.66 and senior Jaime Lopez t10th in 16:11.63.

Creekside junior Matthew Clark was the only top ten finisher for his school, coming in fifth in 16:03.02, but Creekside totaled a team score of 90 points to win the team title. Jesuit, champions in class 3A three times in the last five years, were fourth with 156 points.

STATE CROSS-COUNTRY

This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 9:42 PM with the headline "Coral Reef boys finish second in Class 4A as five runners take home medals."