Sydney Stelly Places 30th at State Cross Country Meet
FABRIZIO GOWDY | NOV. 11, 2019 | SPORTS
Stanton College Preparatory School's varsity girls cross country runner Sydney Stelly finished thirtieth overall at the 3A Florida High School Cross Country State Championship Meet in Tallahassee on Nov. 9, 2019, with a time of 19:49.
Stelly, a senior, qualified for the state meet the previous Saturday with a time of 20:07 and a ninth-place overall finish at Regionals in Lake City, on Nov. 2.
“I think [my season] has gone really well,” said Stelly, who has been a member of Stanton’s cross country team since her freshman year.
Senior Sydney Stelly has been a member of the Stanton Cross Country team since her freshman year.
This season alone, Stelly says she has managed to drop her personal best 5K time from 22:02 to 19:45.
“I think that’s a really big improvement,” said Stelly. She had hoped to run a new personal best today to cap off her season, but ultimately came up a mere four seconds short of her goal on a course notorious for its tough hills.
At the state championship meet on N ov. 9, Stelly was aided by ideal weather conditions: a bright blue sky and a 7:30 a.m. racetime temperature hovering around a chilly 50 degrees.
“Breathing-wise and humidity-wise it felt really good and I felt really fast running,” said Stelly.
While the Stanton varsity girls finished eleventh as a team at Regionals, coming up short of the eight place finish needed to qualify for states, Stelly advanced to state competition as an individual.
"Sydney worked really hard this season and put in all the effort all the time, so I'm really proud of how well she did,” said first year girls cross country coach and Stanton biology teacher Norah Betancourt.
According to former Stanton cross country coach Rodney Smith, Stelly is the first girl to represent Stanton as an individual at the state meet since Alivia Davis in 2017, and is only the third girl to do so since 2005.
Stelly slightly outperformed her pre-race seed of thirty-second. Her performance was the second best in terms of placement and third best in terms of time for any girl in Stanton history.