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Bauer saves his best for last

File photo by Bill Ward

Sebring senior Connor Bauer capped a remarkable high school career by finishing seventh with a time of 16:00.53 in last weekend's Class 3A state cross country meet in Dade City. Bauer is looking to compete in college.

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By RYAN LAVNER

Highlands Today

Published: November 30, 2009

SEBRING - Connor Bauer often won so convincingly this fall that he had already peeled off his jersey by the time the rest of the pack began the closing stretch, a not-so-subtle reminder of which runner rules the Heartland.

Lapping the field here is fun. Toppling the iron-lunged runners at the state cross country meet is even more gratifying.

"He doesn't necessarily enjoy being the big fish in a little pond, but he's not afraid to battle with the best of them," Sebring cross country coach Jeff Shoemaker said. "Actually, that's when he's at his best."

Bauer finished seventh in last weekend's Class 3A state meet in Dade City, improving upon his eighth-place finish in Class 2A in 2008.

His time: 16:00.53. His improvement: 32 seconds. And his ego boost: 179, the number of participants - supposedly the fastest in Florida - he crossed the finish line ahead of.

Bauer's recent race is particularly noteworthy, however, for an aspect that has little to do with statistics.

This was, Bauer admitted, the best race of his life. That sounds strange coming from a guy so accustomed to winning.

"What I'll take from that meet is the finish," Bauer said, "and how I ran with pain, how I wasn't expecting to feel as good as I felt at the end."

Pain? Leg pain? Chest pain?

"Excruciating pain," he said. "Just zero gas. Your body kind of goes numb, but you don't care because the finish line is so close. Just an awesome feeling of pain."

Bauer, the 16th-ranked runner entering the state meet, said he felt "horrible" before the year's final event. He wasn't sleeping well, which was slowly draining his body. He felt an enormous amount of stress - a product of last year's remarkable performance at states, where he dropped a minute off his previous times, posted a personal-best pace and faced soaring expectations for his senior year.

"It's hard to look back on my senior year and not put a personal best on the board," he said. "But I think this performance capped it off right."

Said Shoemaker: "To go up a classification and still finish in the top 10 is probably the best performance of his career, so far."

And Bauer's career, it seems, is just a few strides off the starting line.

He has taken several recruiting trips, including a visit last weekend to Gulf Coast University. He also has drawn interest from the University of South Florida.

How's this for a recruiting pitch: "Teams are sort of taking a bargain with me because my times aren't as good, but looking at my background, I've had very little training," he said. "I'm definitely raw. They can mold me."

Potential college coaches needn't look past Bauer's state meet for the best scouting report.

Zipping around the 3.2-mile course, Bauer spotted Shoemaker midway through the race. After running his first mile in 4:54, Bauer flashed him a wry smile - not because he was feeling great (quite the opposite, in fact), but because he was drawing everything from the final meet of his high school career.

"He probably ran the best race he could have run that day," Shoemaker said.

And his performance - easily the best finish in the area - stands in stark contrast to his regional meet in Charlotte, where he was tripped up early, picked up the pace late and finished third to advance to states. It was a meet, he said, that was "unnecessarily competitive."

Bauer proclaimed after the regional meet that he wanted to break his 2008 pace of 15:59, his personal-best time.

He came close, finishing 2 seconds slower.

Hey, he's a year older.

"I think he was really excited about his finish, but he would have liked to have a faster time," Shoemaker said. "That's the only thing, the cherry on the pie that was missing. He couldn't have run a better race, driving in at the finish."

Bauer said he relishes the big events, the big fields, the well-traveled tracks and the strong runners with the knowledgeable coaches and precise training regimens - something he doesn't typically experience in local meets.

"It's not an easy thing for me and my mindset, because I don't get as much out of a race if I win by two minutes," Bauer said. "It's hard to take local races as serious without someone pushing me."

He knows now how it feels to be pushed to the limit. And for once, Bauer couldn't be happier finishing behind his competition.

Ryan Lavner can be reached at 863-386-5841 or rlavner@highlandstoday.com

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