Monday Morning Recap: Deep fields in Saltillo

Varsity Boys 5k


In the boy's race, it was one of the deepest fields in Saltillo Invitational history. Even Keegan Leverett, the All-State #3 ranked runner from Saint Stanislaus, made the 6-hour drive to throw his nose in with the best runners in the state.

At the start, the Oxford duo of Ethan Knight and Luke Johnson , who just went sub 16:40 at Memphis a couple of weeks back, took it out. After a quick first kilometer, Sam Arnold just couldn't help himself and charged to the lead and made sure he put the hurt on the field early on.


After a sub-5 first mile, it was still Arnold leading, and although a few others would join him here and there, he stayed up front through the 3k mark. Taylor Brown  was going with them, and Cooper Parmer was having one the best races of his life sticking his nose up there as well. There were a few runners dropping because of the hot pace, and Leverett and Jaheim Bridges got caught in the back having to bridge gaps on the back half of the race.

At the 3k mark, 16:17 5k man Luke Johnson of Oxford finally pounced and took the lead from the Brookhaven duo. This was the first time all season that anyone had taken the lead from them on the 2nd half of the race all season.


And although Johnson made a valiant effort, and even had a slight gap on them momentarily, it was Arnold that made his signature '1k to go' surge, and Grayson Childress was the only one to respond. At half a mile to go, it was all them 2, and Childress and Arnold again went 1-2 for the 4th time in a row this season in a very stacked race. Johnson came through in 3rd, Leverett winning the chase pack in 4th, and Brown came through just ahead of Parmer in 5th.

In the team race, Brookhaven High School took it pretty handily as they were expected to. Although Saltillo once again had a tight 1-5 pack, Brookhaven is just too top-heavy and put 3 in the top 9 and 4 in the top 14.