Patriots run away with section titles

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HOOVER – Thursday morning’s 5K races at the Class 6A, Section 3 cross-country meet followed indistinguishable blueprints.

Once the starter fired his gun, a sea of red jerseys jolted off the line and shot toward the front of the pack.  They stayed there for the next 3.1 miles.

“It was a good day,” Homewood High School cross-country coach Lars Porter said. “It was something that needed to be a good race.”

Task complete.

On a cool-turned-mild morning at Veterans Park, the Homewood girls and boys cross-country teams toasted the competition. Freshman Lainey Phelps and sophomore Will Stone captured first-place finishes in their respective races as they led their teams to a pair of emphatic victories.

The Homewood girls placed five runners in the top seven and nine runners in the top 12. The Patriots totaled 22 points, which bested runner-up John Carroll’s 43.

The Homewood boys, meanwhile, swept their race’s top six positions to earn a perfect score: 15. The John Carroll boys placed second with 52 points.

 “It was exciting. We were sitting one, two and three looking strong, and then John Carroll had the two guys mixed up,” Porter said. “It took a little bit of fight at the end for our guys to get in there and get those top six spots."

Stone, along with senior teammate Paul Selden, took control from the start.

Less than a mile in, the duo had already gapped the field by a margin somewhere in the range of 50 to 75 meters.

Their front-running positions never changed.

Selden latched onto Stone for the remainder of the race, trailing by only a few strides. At the finish, they crossed two seconds apart.

Stone clocked in at 16 minutes, 54.91 seconds, and Selden followed in 16:56.84.

“They’re just doing their job,” Porter said. “Those two guys are so focused on just improving.”

Will Smith (3rd, 17:31), Alvin Finch (4th, 17:57), Carson Bedics (5th, 18:07) and Azariah Kipchumba (6th, 18:14) completed the Patriots’ top six sweep.

Phelps, on the other hand, achieved an equal level of dominance. The talented ninth-grader led wire-to-wire and finished more than 100 seconds (roughly one quarter-mile) ahead of her nearest opponent, John Carroll’s Bella Restrepo.

Phelps registered a mark of 18:34.71 to Restrepo’s 20:15.07.

“There’s no other way to put it: Lainey’s just a special athlete to coach,” Porter said.

“She ran 30 seconds faster today than she did two weeks ago, and we thought two weeks ago was an impressive performance.”

Phelps ran 19:05 at the Hoover Invitational on Oct. 20, which was held on the same Veterans Park course. Like Thursday’s outcome, Phelps bested the Hoover Invite field, which featured Mountain Brook’s Anna Grace Morgan.

Morgan is the state’s second-ranked runner, regardless of classification. Phelps is No. 1.

“We’ve had some special workouts that have been eye opening as to how talented she really is,” Porter said.

Celie Jackson (3rd, 20:34), Caroline Smith (5th, 21:04), Audrey Nabors (6th, 21:21) and Zoe Nichols (7th, 21:28) rounded out the team’s scoring runners.

With their collective victories, the Homewood boys and girls each advanced to the AHSAA State Cross Country Championships, which will be held Saturday, Nov. 12, at Oakville Indian Mounds Park near Moulton.

The boys will aim for their fifth-straight state title, while the girls will chase the program’s first state cross-country championship.

Both teams will enter as heavy favorites.

“Everything that we’ve done so far this season has been leading up to this,” Porter said. “They have leeway to take a calculated risk, nothing crazy, but we want to take a risk and we want to be our best. We want to see if we can break through.”