Heading into the 2021 season, Tohopekaliga boys cross country coach Matt Fenn said his team’s depth would be the strength of his squad.
He wasn’t kidding.
On Thursday, his sixth runner – usually a non-scoring participant – decided the Orange Belt Conference Championship in favor of the Tigers.
At end of the meet, Tohopekaliga found itself in a tie for with Celebration for the team title with 34 points. Under OBC rules, the tiebreaker is determined by the sixth place runner from each team. In that decisive race, Max Ciulla covered the 5K distance in 18:44.9, finishing about seven seconds in front of Celebration 19th place runner Justin Quispe to secure the team title for the Tigers.
“It seldom comes down to a tiebreaker in a meet, but that’s something we had talked about and stressed to our runners since the beginning of the year. Every place counts and team victories are seldom decided by the top of your roster,” Fenn said. “We knew Celebration had a very good team and we knew it would be close. Fortunately we had enough to come out on top.”
Tohopekaliga, which opened in the fall of 2018, had not won an OBC team championship in any sport in its first three years of competition. But Wednesday’s cross country win gives the Tigers two titles this fall, matching the girls’ volleyball title secured a few weeks ago.
“It feels great to get the school’s second OBC title and first in cross country,” Fenn said. “We have said all along that we wanted to build a special program here and this is another step in that direction.”
Toho placed three runners on the OBC All-Conference team led by a second place finish by Julian Pomales (16:37.64) and fourth and eighth place finishes by Johan Camacho (17:08.22) and Javan Medina (17:49.19).
Celebration also placed three members on the All-Conference team, including individual champion Jared Falchook, who won his second consecutive OBC meet in a time of 16:24.88. Falchook won the event by eight seconds over Harmony’s Joel Jean (16:32.39).
“Really my only goal was to win this meet and not worry about the time,” Falchook said. “Joel pushed me a little but in late afternoon meets I sort of like having someone pushing me.”
The Storm also got all-conference finishes from Cooper James and Evan Amaya, who finished fifth and sixth. St. Cloud’s John Ortiz rounded out the All-Conference team by finishing seventh in 17:42.13.
St. Cloud finished third in the meet with 83 points, Harmony (86) was fourth, Gateway (143), and Poinciana (161) sixth.
In the girls’ championship, Celebration junior Catalina Edwards outdueled Harmony’s Lailana Decker for the individual crown but it was not enough as the Longhorns won their fourth consecutive team title with 26 points. The Storm placed second (36), Tohopekaliga (87) was third; followed by St. Cloud (112) and Gateway (114).
“It was hot out there today, but I felt pretty good,” Edwards said about her winning time of 19:33.13 beating Decker (19:38.05) to the line in just under five seconds. “I was happy for Lailana, we trained together hard all summer. She really pushed me along.”
As with the Tohopekaliga boy’s win, it was Harmony’s overall depth that made the difference in the girls’ meet. In addition to Decker’s second place finish, the Longhorns got all-conference efforts from senior Alanie Rivera who finished third overall in 20:53.71. Harmony also got fifth and sixth place finishes by underclassmen Eliana Halk and Izabell Reichard.
Celebration also got all-conference performances from Camille Barrios and Hefina Oliver, who finished in seventh and eighth.
“We had a chance today,” Storm Coach David Rains said. “We needed a little higher finish by two or three runners, but five Harmony credit, they did a great job.”
Nyidjah Ives of Liberty earned all-conference honors with a fourth place overall finish (21:58.33); while Tohopekaliga’s Amari Whetro (22:19.61) rounded out the All-OBC team with a fifth place finish.
“We knew the meet was going to be tight going in, and it was nerve racking for a while,” Harmony girls’ coach Shasta Edwards said. “But I thought we did a good job overall. We got it done and I am so proud of these young ladies. We keep working hard and get ready for districts.”
In a junior varsity OBC meet the proceeded the varsity championships, Jared King (19:23.44) led four Toho runners in the top 10 as the Tigers captured the Junior Varsity OBC title. Celebration’s Lauren Cacoms led a 1-2-3 sweep for the Storm as they captured the girls’ JV title.
