As Genevieve LaCaze made her way up the last hill of the women’s 5K race Saturday she could feel her second Mountain Dew Invitational win coming.
“If you can get up the hill, you think that you’re home safe,” LaCaze said.
But as she started her sprint down the last 550 feet of the smooth, sloping first fairway of the Mark Bostick Golf Course, a runner clad in Jacksonville University green sped by and took her first place finish by three seconds.
“I’m definitely kicking myself,” LaCaze said. “But in the race, your body’s hurting, everything’s hurting and your mind is telling you otherwise to finish the race.”
For UF cross country Coach Todd Morgan, the disappointment of the day isn’t his men's and women’s teams’ sixth consecutive team win at the MDI. Nor is it junior men’s runner Josh Izewski’s first place finish or LaCaze’s runner-up finish, but instead, a lack of adherence to strategy early in the race by the women’s team.
In the first mile of the women’s 5K, No. 8 UF came out of the starting gate uncharacteristically fast. With four runners leading the race, the Gators began to push the limits of their early season form.
“When they got out a little too hard, our training isn’t ready for us to handle that right now,” Morgan said. “I think it kind of hit them in the gut a little bit.”
As the women entered the interior of the course’s rolling inclines, their stranglehold on the lead was challenged by JU runner Joane Pierre, who ended up winning with a final time of 17:33.50. By the last mile of the race the pace picked up again, and this time the Gators weren’t able to place as many runners at the front leading to LaCaze and Pierre’s showdown.
“That last sprint down the last channel she came with such speed,” LaCaze said. “When they come by you so fast it’s almost like a shock.”
UF had three other top-10 finishers and won the women’s team category by 70 points over Jacksonville.
When the UF men’s team took to the course it stuck with Morgan’s strategy and guided its way through the race’s first 6K with little dramatics. Izewski kept a steady pace at the front for most of the morning until the last kilometer, when he kicked and opened up a 10-second advantage over Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University sophomore Evans Kirwa.
As Izewski crossed the finish line with a time of 24:39.52 to win the men’s 8K, his teammate, sophomore Derek Wehunt, caught Kirwa within 30 yards of the banner and sprinted forward to claim a two-second edge and the runner-up spot in the race.
“We come out here every day and just listen to what he [Morgan] says,” Izewski said. “It shows that we can run really well.”
In the weeks leading up to UF’s home meet, Morgan talked about how the men’s team had turned a corner over the spring and into the offseason. Izewski’s finish seems to be a testament to this as he improved from a 14th place finish in the invitational last year to first place in 2010. UF finished the men’s race with seven runners in the top-10 and 74 point advantage over Embry-Riddle to win the overall team category.
“We’re well ahead of where we were 365 days ago,” Morgan said. “This wasn’t an all-out type of a race for us. But as an overall group, their fitness level was a lot better than it was a year ago today.”
