Championship Weekend

It's late in the year for Florida high school cross country but the State Championships will finally arrive this Friday and Saturday.  All State honors await as many as a half dozen or more Lee County harriers.

Ladies first.  It's been a remarkable season for the girls of Lee County.  Three have broken 18 minutes for 5000 meters which is quite an achievement.  Lehigh's Gianna Del Pizzo and Bishop Verot's Mackenzie De Lisle are sure bets for top ten finishes.  Both have outside chances of actually winning individual titles in Class 4A and 2A respectively.  The third sub 18 runner, Ansley Kelly of Riverdale, suffered a season ending injury.

Two other girls that should claim All State honors are Jaslyn Forbes from Oasis in Class 2A and Masha Dorofeev from Fort Myers in 3A.  Forbes has staked her claim as the up and coming distance star among the area ranks.  The sophomore has made the kind of improvement any coach would like to see from their freshman year.  Dorofeev could go from a 47th place finish as a sophomore to a top ten placing as a junior.

Team wise Bishop Verot, led by De Lisle, has staked its claim as the top girls program in Lee County for the second year in a row.  A top ten finish appears to be a sure thing in Class 2A while Fort Myers is hoping to crack the top ten as well in Class 3A.  Cape Coral's girls which claimed the county championship would need a bunch of PR's to slide into the top ten in Class 3A.

On the boy's side JoJo Koraya, a senior from Fort Myers, will look to add another honor to his Region championship. Koraya took fourth last year at State but the three runners in front of him were also juniors.  Plus he'll have to take down one of the greatest distance runners in Florida high school history, Patrick Koon from Leon, if he hopes to take gold.

Fort Myers junior Craig Allard, Jr. should join Koraya on the medal stand.  Unfortunately, the Green Wave lack the depth that saw them take second at State the last two years.  A top five finish would be nothing to sneeze at for Yancey Palmer's squad.

The best team in the county is again, from Bishop Verot.  Coach Tyler Stowell has gotten his boys to buy into his program and the results have been amazing.  The Vikings lost two standout seniors from a squad that finished fifth last year.  Verot could duplicate that finish in Class 2A.  Andrew Marino leads the Vikings and he should run himself into a spot on the podium.  Teammate Zach Zielke will hope to join him.

Other teams qualifying out of Lee County are both the boys and girls from SFCA, the boys from Cape Coral and the girls from North Fort Myers.