Dear Middle School Track Athletes and Parents,

 

As I was a distance runner during my track days and Coach Dunn was a middle distance runner during his track days, this meet is extra exciting for us.  More importantly, for the boys, it is a good test to step up in distance and try something that many have not done since opening time trials in late February, or even at all (in the case of Teddy Sterrett running his first ever 3200).  As most have not done the event they did yesterday since that time trial week, this meet is a great example of how the work put in over the past two months has paid off.  With only 4 individual events in the meet, everyone really had the chance to focus on their one individual event and go after a PR (18 out of 20 boys did that).  We even pulled off four 400 PRs in the 4x400 relay splits, including 2 individual elite performances to go with a relay elite performance.

 

The elite performance machine was working overtime again this meet with 8 elite performances, including a middle school record and 2 boys earning white sunglasses (breaking 5:00 in the 1600).  More on those in a moment.  I first want to start with some of the big time drops on the day.  As mentioned above, Teddy ran his first ever 3200, an event that does strike a bit of fear into most middle school track athletes.  Jayden Addei dropped almost 10 seconds from his 400, now just over 3 seconds from breaking that magic minute mark.  Gabe Wyatt had a ridiculous drop of over 31 seconds in his 800, then ran a 3-second PR in the 400 with his relay split about 20 minutes later.  Alexander Koussoglou dropped over 10 seconds in his 800, now ranking 14th overall on the STC MS all-time list with that elite performance.  The 1600 was the marquee event and also featured some of the most impressive time drops.  Eli Holloway dropped over 54 seconds, destroying the 6:00 barrier.  Aveon Wynn dropped over 32 seconds, closing in on that 6:00 barrier.  Jahmari Kenney dropped just under 28 seconds and almost broke 5:30 in the process.  Langdon Sexton dropped 18, Palmer Telfian dropped 13, Corbett Kessel dropped 7, and Charlie Branch dropped 6.  Davis Mullen, who ran cross country and indoor track and is currently on the lacrosse team, dropped in to try and join the sub-5:00 party in the 1600.  He did have a PR of a few tenths, now sitting 13th on the STC MS all-time list and improving his 2nd best 7th grade time STC MS all-time to 5:02.97.  He also broke the 1:00 elite performance barrier in the 400 for the first time, leading off a relay which was anchored by another elite performance as Tapiwa Mutoti ran a 58.17, good enough for 18th on the STC MS all-time list.

 

The dropped time turned in by Charlie and Langdon was impressive for guys who were already pretty fast, but more importantly, put both boys under 5:00 for the first time ever.  This has only ever been done by 7 STC middle school runners before these two boys joined the group(and only 3 before 2023).  This not only shows the difficulty in achieving this time, but also the strength of our 1600 runners over the last 3 years with 6 guys under 5:00 from 2023-2025.  The 1600 in this meet was built up to other teams as the marquee event, drawing 8 entrants at 5:12 or better.  This race certainly lived up to the hype with 5 guys under 5:00, as well as a 5:00.2 and Davis' 5:02.9.  I want to first give credit to Charlie who went out aggressively, quickly getting a 10-15 yard lead on the field during the first half of the race.  I was a bit concerned when he went through the first lap in 1:10 (4:40 1600 pace), but he is pretty tough and I was hopeful he could hang on.  Leading the group through the halfway point in 2:23 was important as the rest of the field continued to chase him.  After settling into 2nd place behind the eventual winner as the 4th lap started, he hung tough that final lap and was able to be well under that 5:00 mark at 4:56.96.  Langdon ran a 5:19 in this race a year ago, and although he got close to that time this winter during indoor track (5:25), it was his 5:11 at Collegiate a few weeks ago that got me (and hopefully him) thinking that he could break 5:00.  His 2:15 speed in the 800 meant that he would be able to get out with this sub-5:00 group, and if he could hang on, he could break that 5:00 mark.  He stayed right on the heels of the only sub-5:00 guy going into the meet, and hung on as long as he could.  When he realized he was on the final straightway, he gave it all he had to try and beat the guy he had been following.  And, thanks to that final kick and a nice lean, edged him out by .01 seconds and crossed the line in 4:53.49, just .2 seconds off the 2nd best time in STC MS history and 1.35 seconds from the middle school record.  Langdon's time drop to break 5:00 for the first time is the biggest among the 9 STC MS runners that have broken 5:00.  As has been tradition since Coach Cross' oldest son Philip and his teammates half-joked about getting a pair of my usual white sunglasses back in 2011 if Philip broke 5:00 (he ran 5:05 by the way), their sub-5:00 times mean that they will be presented their white sunglasses in chapel by the most recent person to earn the white sunglasses (Asa White 2024).  We do have chapel on Monday, but I will need to check with Asa, so that presentation may happen at Wednesday's chapel, assuming Asa is available.  I do have more history related to the white sunglasses as I always add a paragraph to it every time someone breaks 5:00, so I will get that out later this week once I have more time to write it.

 

As I told Coach Dunn following the 1600, I was still shaking when I had to start timing the girls 800 right after that final heat of the 1600 finished.  However, it was earlier in the meet that really got heads turning, especially from coaches of other teams.  We were pleased to get Elex Churchwell entered into the meet in the last second as we have been itching to see him run another 400 after his near-7th grade record (and 8th all-time) run during time trials two months ago.  Thanks to a bit more strategy this time around, and the ability to chase a Louisa runner in an outside lane who went out hard and ended up running the 6th best time in the history of this meet, Elex blew away the field, his personal best, the meet record, and the STC middle school record.  He ran a 53.41, beating Noah Smith's STC MS record of 54.18 from 2023.  He also edged out the meet record time of 53.50, which I thought would never go down after it was run a year ago.  When Elex finished, many of the coaches were around the finish line area in shock by the time they had just seen.  I even heard one coach shout, "that kid's only in 7th grade!"  Regardless of grade level, it was certainly an impressive time and Coach Dunn, Coach Cross, and I were all just saying "wow!" over and over again after Elex finished that race.  Based on MileStat's results database, Elex is now the fastest middle school 400 runner in the state (and would be in over half the states in the country).  In fact, today's meet produced the fastest middle school times in Virginia not only for the boys 400, but also the boys 1600, boys 4x400 relay, and girls 3200, with the latter three done by Louisa runners.  The top 4 in the boys 1600 today actually rank as the top 4 in the state, meaning Langdon is 2nd and Charlie is 4th in the state.

 

As I alluded to at the Timberwolf Classic, we are pretty unstoppable when we have a full team, and even with a scaled-back slate of events, we looked pretty good out there with 19 of our 23 guys (plus Davis).  This meet is unscored because we want it to be all about going after personal bests, but if it were scored, we would have beaten powerhouse Louisa by 10 points, 63-53, with Lourdes in 3rd at 41.  The next closest team was Grove Christian with 8.  Again though, teams were not making line-ups to try and win, they were making them for personal bests and we certainly were successful with that goal, turning in 21 of them over just 5 events.