Blue Streak Girls, Bauer Advance To Regionals

TAMPA - The Sebring girls cross country team showed what solidarity can do for a team, as they finished fifth at the Class 3A-District 5 district meet on Thursday at Lake Park in Tampa.
Rough course conditions took its toll on the boys team, who gave a good performance but came up short, finishing in seventh place - one spot out of moving on to regionals.

"The boys did what they could do," Sebring coach Jeff Shoemaker said. "I have no complaints on how they performed. It just wasn't good enough to make it this time."
The top six teams advance to the Region 3 meet, which will take place on Nov. 9 at Estero Community Park in Ft. Myers.

Sebring sophomore Connor Bauer will represent the boys team after putting in an impressive 17:09, good enough for sixth place. The top 15 individual times move on.

"Connor has such a bright future ahead of him," Shoemaker said. "The six people that finished ahead of him basically out-trained him over the summer.

"If Connor puts in the time running in the off-season, he could be so much better. He has good mechanics and he's maturing as a runner."

The Blue Streak girls got great production out of their top three runners (Heather McIntyre, Sydney Ruble and Maxine Copley), who pushed their team into regionals.

McIntyer ran a 21:56, which was near her personal best of 21:49, while Ruble finished with a time of 23:37 and Copley crossed the finish line in 24:08.
The Avon Park Red Devils had a good showing from both teams, but fell short of advancing to regionals.

The AP boys squad finished in eighth place, while the girls finished in ninth. The top Red Devil boys finisher was Daniel Temples, who finished 32nd with a time of 19:27, while Cassidy Clayton placed 26th for the girls team with a time of 25:08.
Now that the Sebring girls have punched their tickets to regionals, Shoemaker knows they'll have to step up their performance to have a chance at reaching state.

"We have to get more production out of the other runners," he said. "Right now, we would be 10th out of 12 teams and only the top six move on to state. We have to do better."