Cumberland County’s Ben Tabor finishes first for the boys ahead of Jonathan Boyd of the Chattanooga Patriots.
photo by M.A. Locke
The second league meet for the Chattanooga Cross Country League was held at Camp Jordan Park Tuesday afternoon and for the second time in two weeks, race officials reduced the race from its normal 5K distance to just two miles on account of the heat and humidity.
That was disappointing news to some of the runners who had been diligent with their training all summer and were ready for the real deal. It may have been a blessing in disguise to others who hadn’t been as dedicated and even struggled to cover the shorter distance.
It really didn’t matter to Signal Mountain’s Taylor Luthringer and Cumberland County’s Ben Tabor as they were the overall winners in their respective races with Luthringer posting a time of 11 minutes, 58.45 seconds and Tabor taking first among the guys with a time of 10:20.37.
The finish for those two races was as different as night and day as the Signal Mountain senior ran all alone from the start and finished 42 seconds ahead of Cumberland County freshman Lauren Tabor.
Sydney Tabor, Lauren’s older sister, was third in 12:59 while McMinn Central’s Ashlynd Broling was fourth in 13:11 and East Hamilton’s Eilish Stanek fifth in 13:23.
Ben Tabor, a senior for the Jets and the older brother of Lauren and Sydney, had a nine-second lead over Jonathan Boyd of the Chattanooga Patriots at the halfway point, but Boyd was closing fast and simply ran out of time before finishing as the runner-up two seconds behind Tabor.
Chase Faudi, one of Boyd’s teammates, was third in 10:37 while Signal Mountain’s Thomas Porter and Baylor’s Talus Iorio were fourth and fifth with times of 10:44 and 10:45, respectively.
As was the case two weeks ago on this same course for the first week of competition, it was hot and humid and extremely dry. It was so dry that every time a runner would make a foot strike, a small cloud of dust rose from the ground.
Luthringer had posted a time of 19:18 on Saturday when she finished eighth at the Berry Invitational 5K in Rome, so she’s fit and ready to race the longer distance.
She didn’t have to run as far or as fast on Tuesday.
“I wanted to stay on a six-minute pace, so it turned out pretty good for me,” the blonde senior explained shortly after her race ended.
“I was a little bit sore after lifting weights for two hours on Sunday, but today was just a good tempo run for me. I’m really happy that I was able to get under 12 minutes. I did a lot of running by myself this summer, trying to push myself when I’m all alone. I think it helped,” she added.
“I really didn’t have a strategy today as I just wanted to finish in the top 10,” said 14-year-old Lauren Tabor when she slowed down long enough after the race to catch her breath.
“It was pretty hot out there, but I just tried to keep the leader in sight,” she added.
Ben Tabor had a nice lead over Boyd at the one-mile mark. The Cumberland County senior said he never turned around to look where his toughest competitor was as he cruised past the finish line as the winner by a narrow margin.
“It was pretty hot, but I’m just bummed that it wasn’t a 5K today,” the oldest Tabor suggested afterward.
“I took the lead at the beginning. Jonathan closed the gap pretty well at the end, but I don’t ever look back during a race. People on the course kept me posted about where he was,” Tabor explained.
A two-second margin of victory was a win in itself to the home-schooled junior, who had never been that close to Tabor in a race before.
“It was a hard run and I didn’t expect to be that close to Ben as he’s super fast. I pushed really hard in that last mile, but I just couldn’t get it done at the end,” he shook his head after the race ended.
“I knew he had a good lead at the halfway point and I never thought I’d be able to get that close, but I’ve never been that close to beating him as he’s always about 30 seconds ahead in a 5K and about 15 seconds even in a mile.
“Two miles was a good workout for me today as I was running pretty hard the whole way,” Boyd nodded.
The Baylor boys had four runners in the top 10 so the Red Raiders were the easy team winners with 45 points.
Iorio, Silas Gartman and James Post finished 5-6-7 with times of 10:45, 10:54 and 10:57 while teammate Atherton Mook was 10th in 11:15.
Signal Mountain was second with 97 while Cleveland was a distant third with 163.
The Signal Mountain girls were first with 85 points while Soddy Daisy and Rhea County were second and third with 124 and 135, respectively.
Tuesday’s race had 119 girls who finished and 164 boys who competed the distance. There were 23 teams represented in the team scores with at least four or five individuals from other schools who didn’t have a complete team.
Next week’s league meet will be at Heritage High School in Catoosa County with the races set for Monday afternoon instead of Tuesday.
(email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)