Footlocker Championship - December 9, 2023
Sunny skies greeted athletes, coaches, families, friends and fans at Morley Sports Complex at Balboa Park in San Diego on Saturday. The first race was the girls championship.
Girls Championship
Rachel Forsyth of Anna Arbor Pioneer (MI) opened the race with a blistering pace with a 2:23 800 and 5:00 mile. Forsyth had stretched the lead by ten seconds at the one mile mark. By the 1.5 mile mark, Elizabeth Leachman of Boerne Champion (TX) had closed the lead slightly and then caught Forsyth at the two-mile mark. Leachman's strategy changed from last week's NXN meet as she held back in the first mile.
At the final sprint, Leachman had opened fifteen second lead on Forsyth and Allie Zealand of Pacers Homeschool (VA). Leachman finished in a time of 16:50.7 to win Footlocker. She is the seventh sophomore to win Footocker. Zealand finished second in a time of 17:04.5 to earn first team honors. Forsyth (17:08.3), Mary Bonner Dalton (17:28.1) of Meyers Park (NC) and Addison Knoblauch (17:43.0) of Homestead (IN) earned first team honors. Leachman also led her South team to the victory. Local athlete Chiara Dailey of La Jolla was the first west coast athlete finishing 11th with freshman Sophia Rodriguez of Mercer Island (WA) finishing 18th.
Girls Championhip Photo Gallery, Click HERE
Boys Championship
Footlocker boys race played out like NXN last week. The girls went out fast and strung out the race and the boys ran in a pack for the first mile until Ty Steorts of Hurricane (WV) opened a lead at the 1.5 mile mark. Steorts maintained that lead for the next mile and then with a half mile to go Drew Griffith of Butler (PA) grabbed the lead. Griffith did not relinguish the lead and won in a time of 15:06.9. Joining Griffith on the first team podium were Ryan Pajak (15:12.1) of Ringgold (PA), Tam Gavenas (15:16.6) of Andover Phillips Academy (MA), Berkley Nance (15:17.5) of Mills E Godwin (VA) and Brayden Marshall (15:18.4) of Winfield (WV). Pennsylvania never had a champion until Saturday and Griffith and Pajak of Pennsylvania finished first and second.
Despite the Northeast finishing 1-2-3, they fell to the South on a tiebreaker. The top west coast runner was Grant Morgenfeld of Palo Alto (CA) who finished 21st and Joshua Chu of Ponderosa (CA) who finished 23rd.
Boys Championship Photo Gallery, Click HERE
Friday Run Through Photo Gallery, Click HERE
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