By Ron Brocato
Friday’s Region III cross country meet at City Park is meant to be a qualifier for the Nov. 16-17 state championship meet in Natchitoches. But the head coach of Brother Martin’s Harrier crew sees it as a disqualifier.
Coach Drew Haro’s runners, who have been the state runners-up to seven-time champion Jesuit for more than half a decade, see the regional race as a test for his team, but not a deciding factor in the outcome of the championship meet.
“The way cross country is set up in the state is that the top eight teams qualify. If you have a quality program year in and year out, it’s not difficult to make the state meet. So a team like Jesuit or us could run our second teams and still qualify,” Haro explained. “So, we know that if we win this meet, it’s not necessarily the best team that won. But if Jesuit decides to run a really good group, we’ll be ready to do that, too.”
So when the gun sounds for the 10:30 a.m. start on the City Park course Jesuit and Brother Martin are expected to battle again for the top two spots, as history has dictated.
Jesuit won the boys’ District 9-5A meet with 18 points last week. Brother Martin was runner-up with 41, led by third place finisher junior Daniel Bonilla.
Haro said he reasoned that there could be three scenarios that would determine the outcome of the meet.
“Three scenarios that I thought could play out last week were that we could win by three points, lose by three points, or lose by 25 points. We lost by 23 points,” he said. “I felt bad for the guys because we are very talented and believe we can do certain things. The district meet was a good opportunity to test ourselves, though.”
The Region 3 meet consists primarily of teams from the Catholic League – Jesuit, Brother Martin, Chalmette, Rummel, and John Curtis. Holy Cross and St. Augustine compete in a lower division. The remaining teams are from the Northshore area.
“A coach can pick seven runners. And it doesn’t have to be the same runners from the district meet,” Haro noted. “Our team is so deep that we have the opportunity to let guys battle each other for some spots. We will run most of our top guys with a couple of exceptions.”
Haro pointed out that times are hardly an indicator of success. “Times are for the spectators, but for a runner, it's best not to have a clock; just shoot the gun and say, ‘Alright, the first team to get their five guys across the finish line wins. Times don’t matter.’
“In terms of scoring, it’s what place you finish and how many (or few) points you score. And convincing the young runners of that gets tricky. The benefit of the clock is that they can track their progress and be motivated. But the mindset for a team is that what the clock reads doesn’t matter."
“You can be a second behind a group of five runners, and you think you’re really close. That’s a really big swing on points on the scoreboard. The eye test says it’s a really close race, but when you add up the points, you discover you’re way behind,” the coach said. “And there’s no moral victory in being close.”
Haro likened a cross country race to a chess match. “Some don’t want to go hard and lead the race because you have the advantage of being behind the leaders. And it’s hard to lead when others are chasing you.
“In years past we tend to win the regional meet because of the way we run it and the way Jesuit runs it,” Haro said. “In recent meets Jesuit has rested its top five and run their six through 12. We don’t necessarily do that. We’ll swap a few here and there.”
The result of this regional test has not necessarily been an indicator of what will happen in Natchitoches next week.
“Jesuit may do some things differently in the regional meet. We really won’t know until we’re on the starting line,” Haro said.
