Vesser and Hardin Valley dominate Class AAA field
By Steve Williams
Alexandra Vesser ran off and left the field in the Region 2 Class AAA girls cross country meet last week. In fact, her winning time was almost a minute and a half faster than the nearest competitor.
The Hardin Valley sophomore was clocked at 18:57.80 over the 5,000-meter course at Victor Ashe Park.
As a team, the Lady Hawks also excelled, placing five runners among the top nine finishers, with three of the five being sophomores.
HVA totaled 23 points in the team scoring. Farragut was a distant second at 68 and Oak Ridge took third place and the final state berth with an 89.
John Witsell is in his first season as Hardin Valley’s cross country coach, but he’s been around the program for 13 years.
“I watched everything he (Bryan Brown) did,” said Witsell, referring to Brown’s tremendous success at Hardin Valley over the years before becoming Knox County Athletics’ Specialist.
Witsell’s past also includes being a D1 gymnast at the University of New Mexico and learning how to coach during that time. “I’m familiar to coaching at the highest levels,” he said at the region meet.
Witsell also realizes he has a standout in Vesser, as he pointed out she placed third last June in the NIKE Outdoor Nationals’ freshman mile event at the University of Oregon.
Alexandra was in cross country mode at 9 o’clock in the morning last Wednesday. She considers cross country more of a team sport and track more of an individual sport.
Yet, she was all alone when she crossed the finish line. Did she expect it to be that way coming into the race?
“Not exactly,” she said, “but I knew coming into the race that it was going to be pretty obvious (and) a pretty good race.”
Her strategy she said was “mostly just run hard most of it and remind myself not to fall asleep (fade out) and then make sure we got the team to state, which was our goal. I think we did pretty good on that.”
Teammate Ana Berkheimer came in second at 20:21.90. Others on the team included Rachel Benson and Ana Sofia Marquez, who finished fifth and sixth, and senior Stuart Ann Leath who was ninth.
Farragut sophomore Zoi LeCours placed third in 20:27.73 and West freshman Campbell Asti came in fourth less than a second ahead of Benson at 20:36.73.
In addition to LeCours, the Lady Admirals qualified for state with Kenzie Lefler, Lydia McFall, Emma Mattison and Olivia Garcia.
Individual state qualifiers were Asti, Bearden’s Brielle Picket and Haley Jordan, Karns’ Hannah Kramer and West’s Macie Gaines.
Carter freshman and S-D qualify for state
Carter High freshman Suzannah Mae Anderson was Knox County’s top finisher in the Class A-AA meet and placed sixth overall to qualify for the state.
In her first time running the course, Anderson finished the 5K in 22:14.53.
South-Doyle placed third in the team event to qualify for state. Senior Carmen Sedighi led the Lady Cherokees with a time of 24:59.09. The team also included Donna Salvador, Charlotte Fishmoore and sisters Gaby and Naomi Hernandez.
Alcoa won the team title with a score of 29. Anderson County was runner-up with 35 points. S-D totaled 89 points and Stone Memorial (95) placed fourth to also qualify for state.
AC junior Ava Moody won the race with a time of 19:47.32.
