At the 13th Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon, Brie Oakley of Colorado dominated the girls’ 5K race to win in 17:10.1, a remarkable rise in a sport that she took up less than 18 months ago.
Oakley, a senior at Grandview High School in Aurora, broke away from the pack early in the race on December 3 and built a 100-meter lead by the two-mile mark—a gap big enough that even a late fall didn’t cause much drama.
She quickly got to her feet and powered to the finish line more than 28 seconds ahead of Ember Stratton of Sunset High School in Portland, Oregon, who finished second in 17:38.2. Lauren Gregory from Fort Collins, Colorado, was third in 17:39.8.
“I thought people would try to take the pace out a lot faster, but when that didn’t happen, I thought, ‘OK, I’m just going to go,’” said Oakley, who joined her school’s cross-country team for the first time last fall. “I wanted to keep distancing myself as much as I could.”
Oakley is the second-straight Coloradan—with a soccer background—to win the individual title, after Katie Rainsberger set a course record time of 16:56.8 in 2015. Gregory’s third-place finish helped the Centennial State claim two of three spots on the podium.
“It definitely helps to have someone to push you in your state,” said Oakley, who will attend the University of California-Berkeley next year. “It helps you really be ready for meets like this.”
The girls team competition ended up even more one-sided than the individual race, with Fayetteville-Manlius scoring 41 points to comfortably defeat Davis (181 points) and Great Oak-Temecula (185). Coached by the veteran Bill Aris, Fayetteville-Manlius has now won three NXN titles in a row—and 10 of 13 overall.
“I think our girls ran very well,” Aris said. “Our top five runners knew that not one of them could slip up, and they didn’t. I was happy with the effort.”
Fayetteville-Manlius won Saturday’s race without a single senior in their lineup, making them early favorites to repeat as champions in 2017. As for the 61-year-old Aris, there’s a good chance he’ll be back, too.
“I can’t say I won’t ever retire, but I don’t think about it,” he said. “I could do this until I’m on the other side of the grass, or I could be done in a year or two. I have no idea. I just take it one year at a time.”
A surprise in the boys’ team race
In the boys’ race, defending champion Casey Clinger, a senior from of American Fork (Utah) High School, pulled away in the final mile for a dominant victory over the 5,000-meter course in 15:28.4. He was 7 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor, Sam Worley from New Braunfels, Texas. Junior Brodey Hasty of Brentwood, Tennessee, finished third in 15:37.1.
But the boys’ team race served up a stunner. After finishing eighth at NXN a year ago—and only six months after losing their long-time head coach—the boys from Bozeman (Montana) High School scored 105 points to beat out American Fork (141 points) and Brentwood (163) for the team title.
“It caught me by surprise,” said first-year coach Casey Jermyn, a former standout distance runner at Montana State University. “We were really setting our sights on a podium finish…When they announced that we’d won, we were just like, ‘Wait, what?’ It was pretty awesome.”
Jermyn took over the program in July after Clint May, the team’s coach for 21 years, accepted a college coaching job at Southern Virginia University. May had led Bozeman to 18 Montana state cross country titles.
“It’s hard to lose a great coach like that, but the transition was pretty smooth because of the assistants who were in place,” Jermyn said. “I can’t take a lot of credit. I stepped into a great program, we got them through the season healthy, and here we are.”
For the athletes waiting anxiously on the awards podium, the announcement of Bozeman’s victory brought a start contrast of emotions—surprise and euphoria for the boys from Montana, and heartbreak for American Fork, the team that finished as runnersup for the second-straight year.
Paced by Clinger and fellow seniors McKay Johns and Patrick Parker, American Fork entered Saturday’s race among the favorites to win, and they built a 22-point lead over Bozeman by the two-mile mark. But despite Clinger, Johns, and Parker all placing among the top 10 team scorers, American Fork couldn’t hang on.
“We came up a little short, but I’m super proud of our guys,” said Clinger, the individual champion. “They raced really well, and they handled this weekend like pros. Bozeman just ran a phenomenal race.”
Along with the second-place team finish, Clinger became the first male athlete in NXN history to win back-to-back individual titles. But unlike a year ago, when the race wasn’t settled until the closing meters, this time Clinger surged away from the field with a mile to go and entered the final straightaway with a comfortable 40-meter lead.
“That wasn’t really my race plan, but I found myself in front, and I felt good, so I went for it,” he said. “It worked out.”
Clinger has narrowed his college choices down to Brigham Young University and the University of Oregon. BYU coach Ed Eyestone and UO’s Andy Powell were both spotted at the course during Clinger’s race, but the Utah native didn’t offer any hints about his highly anticipated decision.
“I put that on the back-burner to focus on preparing for nationals,” Clinger said. “I’ll definitely be thinking about it a lot more now, but I don’t have a specific timeline.”
