Arroyo, Colonial Boys Capture Metro East Crown


Coverage: Compete results, race footage and video interviews, as well as photo album by Raul Ramirez Sr. posted.


Meet Summary

Mother nature tried to rain on runner's parade as they prepared for the Metro East Conference Championships held at Lake Nona High School. The area's best trekked it out on a course that featured a series of turns and a detour around the schools football and baseball fields. Before anyone starts to raise a red flag according to head coach Ryan Lowe:

"I just finished re-measuring the course and from the center of the path (the yellow line) it was 16420 feet which comes out to just above 5km; however, I also rolled the wheel along the path that was worn from the runners and it came out to 16156 feet which is 4.92km."

Realistically the course was probably closer to three miles, but let's focus on the performances.

Boys Varsity


(Photo by Raul Ramirez Sr.)


The boys race was close for the first mile with Andres Arroyo having a narrow lead over Winter Park senior Billy Anguish. When the two busted out the gate and headed toward the lake for the second time it was Arroyo who began to pull away. The junior was all alone with about 200 meters left in the race. He heard 4:15 and began to think about one of the top times in the nation. Even though Arroyo crossed in 14:40.48 he realizes the time was about 20-30 seconds off. Coach Rene Plasencia believes overall it was one of the standouts best performances of the year and says he ran extremely hard. The Grenadiers placed  their top  seven runners in the top ten to take the team title. Anguish finished second and led the Wildcats to a runner-up spot. 


Girls Varsity


(Photo by Darrell Laxton)


On the girls side Boone senior Heather Classe did somethign she never had in her first three previous seasons. Classe won the conference championship. It was something that meant a lot to her since she missed all but three races a year ago. She crossed the line in *18:16.89 and led the Braves to the team trophy over Winter Park. Cypress Creek freshman Kaley Schmick finished second. Winter Park sophomore Charlotte Stephens rounded out the top three.