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By MARTY MILLER

Hernando Today correspondent

Published: October 18, 2008

DADE CITY - With a month remaining until the Florida High School Athletic Association Finals held at Little verglades Ranch in Dade City, Saturday morning's Pre-State meet was a huge opportunity for all of the state's runners.
Because of that, more than 80 schools from around the state competed Saturday and the second-place finish of Hernando senior Joe Wright and fourth-place finish from Nature Coast Technical senior Matt Lambert set some pretty high standards going into the last month of the season.
With Hernando and Nature Coast Technical both having runners in the top 10, both coaches were pleased with what their lead runners and teams did in the 5K race.
While the final team standings were unavailable at press time, NCT finished with a team score of 178 while Hernando posted 199 points.
Along with Wright, Jesse Balogh came in 21st for the Leopards, David Worthington finished 29th, Jeff Vrosh came in 56th, Parker Steinkamp came in 91st and Jeremy Wright was 94th.
For NCT, Bruce Federico was 20th overall, Tyler Harrison was 42nd, David O'Quinn 44th, Britton Cox was 68th and Jacob Harlow finished 83rd.
In the big school race (Class 3A-A), both the team scores and individual times were not posted by late Saturday.
Both NCT coach Armin Merjanian and Hernando coach Ernie Chatman were pleased with the top finishes by their number one runners.
"I think it went pretty well," said Merjanian. "Matt set a new school record today on a really tough course. I'm not sure where we finished as a team, I think that Wiregrass Ranch got us by a couple of places, but we're gunning for them at the districts."
Coach Chatman said that his team's familiarity with the Little Everglades Ranch layout may have helped Saturday, especially with the long, uphill climb the runners make near the finish line.
"We're familiar with the course, we're not afraid of it and we think we run better on it because of all of the hills we have in Brooksville," Chatman said.
Chatman also thinks Joe Wright may have run his best race this year.
"It was a personal record for him and he paced himself really well," Chatman said. "He got behind at the first mile, then he gave a couple of surges at the end. He probably ran about as well as he could."

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