All eyes were meant to be on Futsum Zeinaselassie (pictured right). Previews had Zeinaselassie as the odds on favorite to win by a wide margin. That all changed once the gun went off. Nick Ryan of Fayetteville-Manlius (pictured below left) took off quickly, as he tends to do during his races in his home state of New York. Ryan's speed found him in the first position after the pack had converged, with about a 50 meter lead ahead of other national caliber athletes; Futsum included.
(All photos by Patrick Bendzick)
Heading into the whoop-de-woops, Ryan still held a dominant lead over the rest of the field. As noted by numerous runners in our video interviews, the members of the pack didn't know what to make of this development;
“I was ready for any move,” Zeinaselassie said. “ I mean I had my plan but I know if that doesn’t work I got to change my plan, you know? And then there’s this random guy you know, like who the heck is this guy, he was moving, he didn’t come back, so I had to change my plan and go after him him.”
The lead didn't last long; Ryan began to fade at about the 2000 meter mark. Futsum overtook the lead, and didn't look back. Striding hard down the backstretch, he was able to capture the course record in 15:02.41, as well as the individual title:
“It feels great,” Zeinaselassie told MileSplit. “I mean, going through all that training all summer and all season long and just come in here and your dream comes true. And I just cannot describe how I’m feeling right now.”
Behind him, two individuals from Texas rolled in neck-and-neck with a time of 15:27. Daniel Vertiz of Reagan High School in San Antonio and Craig Nowak of Cypress Woods High School crossed the line seconds apart. In the fourth position, Izaic Yorks of Lakes High School in Washington was the only other person to get ahead of Nick Ryan, who had finished fifth in 15:31.
Lincroft (CBA), American Fork, and Carroll (Southlake Carrol) were pre-race favorites, but only two of the teams ended up in the hunt for the title. American Fork had faded over the latter half of the race, leaving Lincroft and Carroll to have a close struggle for the top spot. Lincroft's number 5 crossed the line in 16:14, giving them a 24 second spread. Carroll's number 5 finished the race with a 16:07, giving them a 20 second spread. After the race concluded, it was unclear which team had captured the title. The decision would have to wait until the trophy presentation. With both teams on-stage, it was announced the final score was 91 to 95 in favor of Lincroft (CBA).
“It feels awesome,” CBA senior George Kelly. “It’s like nothing else, it’s just a relief. We finally won it.”
CBA coach Chris Bennett was likewise proud with how his team preformed in this elite field:
“They performed great, they did exactly what we told them to do,” Bennett said. “They got out pretty quickly, looking at the 1.5K split, we were in 4th, Caroll got out incredibly, I thought there was a glitch in the screen that said they had 38 points, so they did exactly what they wanted to do. And each split that was going by, our score kept going down, as everybody else’s score seemed to be going up. And we knew with 2K to go, which was the last split they gave us we were down by 12. And we had a shot. And then the coaching becomes very simple.”
