CABOT — Noah Findlay was pushed in more ways than one on Monday. The Catholic junior didn’t seem to mind at all.
Findlay completed the 5K course at the Rolling Hills Country Club in 16:12.81 to win the 7A-Central Conference cross country meet on a warm, sunny afternoon.
“There was a lot of pushing,” said Findlay, who outkicked training buddy and defending conference champion Jerry Melnyk of Little Rock Central to the finish line. “But, hey, cross country’s a physical sport.”
Findlay’s sprint to the finish was good enough to give him a seven-second margin of victory over Melnyk, who was competing for the first time in six months because of an injury.
“He’s good,” Findlay said of Melnyk. “If there was a definition of a cross country runner, it would be him. That’s all there is to it. He’s strong. He’s like a little bulldog.”
“There was a month and a half where I didn’t run,” Melnyk said. “I lost a lot of fitness in the process. The last three weeks, I’ve just been trying to build back up. I’ve been getting better and better. Noah only beat me by a little bit. ... It’s not that bad that he beat me because we’re friends. ... And it’s usually me beating him at cross country, so he’s just overjoyed right now.”
Catholic won the team title with 30 points. Runner-up Cabot was only four points behind.
Cabot senior EmKay Myers won the girls 5K event with a time of 19:09.61. Teammates Allison Sinning (sophomore, 19:18.44) and Hannah Huckabee (freshman, 19:44.92) finished second and third, respectively. The Lady Panthers won the team event with 21 points; Bryant was second with 44.
It did not take long before Findlay and Melnyk broke away from the pack, but it was not until the final 400 yards before Findlay was able to pull away from his friend.
“I knew that I could outkick him,” Findlay said. “Coming into the final hill I was thinking ‘I’ve got him where I want him. This is going to hurt but, I can get him in the end.’ ”
“About a mile and a half in, everybody else had dropped off and it was just him and me,” said Melnyk, who beat his conference meet-winning time of last year by three seconds. “I knew he was going to get me in the end. I was able to stick with him, but in the last 200 meters, he was gone.”
Myers led from start to finish.
“I wanted to lead the race and just get out there,” Myers said. “It wasn’t my best time, but it was good for this race. ... This is the only time of the year we run this course. It’s just different out here and we never know what the course is going to feel like.”
Cabot not only had the top three finishers, but the Lady Panthers also had five girls to place in the top 10. Bryant, whose top finisher was junior Hannah Raney (fourth, 19:55.35) placed six girls in the top 14.
Sports, Pages 17 on 10/25/2011