Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Pine Crest dominates state 2A meet
TALLAHASSEE — Everything was in Pine Crest’s hands. Well, on its collective legs.
Despite being the defending Class 2A state cross country champions, the Panthers’ girls team had detractors that thought the depth of Jacksonville Bolles would be Pine Crest’s undoing during Saturday’s FHSAA Cross Country State Championships at Apalachee Regional Park.
Bolles was so deep it didn’t even need Stanford commit Caitlin Collier, who would have won in 2015 if not for tripping just in front of the finish line to stumble into second place. Pine Crest’s Alyssa Pujals got the win instead.
Collier, who avenged the stumble with a win last year, had been dealing with some nagging injuries and didn’t race Saturday. But it wouldn’t have mattered.
Pine Crest sophomore Tsion Yared, who burst onto the scene with a state championship in 2014 as a seventh-grader, took control of her race over a mile in and never wavered.
Yared’s win in 18:00 was 19 seconds better than Key West’s Nicole Matysik, who finished just seconds ahead of Pine Crest sophomore Maya Beleznay and freshman Mahdere Yared.
When sophomore Emily Faulhaber crossed in seventh place, it meant Pine Crest had its first four across before Bolles had its first.
“Hats off to Coach Ryan and the Bolles girls,” Panthers coach Paul Baur said. “Even without Collier, they have a great group out there. They really pushed our girls.”
Cassie Lawlor sealed the deal and the repeat state championship with a 30th-place finish in 19:33 – her best time of the year by some 35 seconds – and Pine Crest posted 33 points to Bolles’ 53.
Streak ends
Raider senior Nicholas Rischar finished in fourth place in his Class 4A race, but he was the only top-10 finisher for St. Thomas Aquinas, which saw its twoyear streak of state titles comes to an end.
Oviedo moved up to the top spot, while STA fell just three points shy of Steinbrenner for state runner-up.
But even though STA’s streak ended, Rischar was ecstatic with the work put in by his team. And he was pretty pleased with himself, breaking 16 minutes for the first time to post a new eight-second PR of 15:53.
“We worked extremely hard this year, and we hadn’t had a race this cool all year, but we were up against a lot of fast runners,” Rischar said. “The course was great as ever. I had a great time. I worked my (butt) off to get where I was. Overall, I think we did our best.”
Just ahead of Rischar was Forest Hills junior Isaias de la Puente, who was second a year ago after netting a 21-second drop in the season’s final race.