2021 Jesse Owens Classic
The calm before the storm...
---
The Oxford trio of Matthew Singletary, Ethan Knight, and eventual race winner Luke Johnson decided to take it out and make it an honest race, coming through the first mile in 4:57. Oxford has one of the best trios in the state, and they proved it, as Johnson was only 1 second off of his PR, and both Knight and Singletary broke the 16:30 5k barrier for the first time in their careers.
---
The boys' gold race at Jesse Owens was one to remember. Brookhaven High School exceeded expectations, and Sam Arnold snagged himself a new PR in the process - 15:49. Like I have stated before, Arnold is one of the gutsiest runners in the state, and the number of gaps he made back up in the race was fun to watch. Arnold is only 10 seconds away from his achieving his pipe dream goal of running in the 15:30's like he said he would his freshman year of high school.
---
As you can see, it was difficult to pick out the Mississippi runners when they were buried in such large packs, but I barely got Brookhaven's 5th man Collin Kellum as he got himself a new PR at Jesse Owens as well - their whole team did. However, what I really want to focus on here is the absolute pain on everyone's faces and they put it all on the line for 5 kilometers - including Kellum. You won't find another sport where everybody looks like that at the end of it.
---
Lastly, moving over to around the first kilometer in the girl's gold race, we have Brooklyn Biancamano having arguably one of the best cross country races in her career. As you can see, and we also somewhat touched up on this lesson in last week's picture article, Biancamano looks so relaxed up there in the front pack with some a very high-caliber field. However, she was calm through the storm - she knew exactly what to do with her race situation, trusted her instincts and fitness, and it paid off with a HUGE 3rd place finish.