Grant Fisher leads junior parade at FL Finals

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

 
SAN DIEGO – Mike Scannell found Grant Fisher near the railing of the media pen, grabbed him for a hug and shouted, "That was perfect!"

They were words that aptly captured a moment for the junior from Grand Blanc (Michigan) who used his superior foot speed to overcome a challenge from junior John Dressel of Mt. Spokane (Washington) and win the Foot Locker national finals in 15:07. Dressel faltered in the last 25 meters just a bit to finish three seconds back and a third junior, Matthew Maton of Summit (Oregon) was next, 12 seconds back.

Fisher, the Michigan state champion and a U.S. team member at the World Youth Championships last summer in the Ukraine (1,500 meters), put himself in the right place to take advantage after a somewhat slow (4:53 first mile) early pace.

Four runners from the West held the lead in the second half of the race -- Joe Hardy, Maton, Blair Hurlock and Dressel -- but the Midwest Region champion flew into the lead on the final downhill. Then it was a see-saw battle with Dressel over the final stretch that saw the runners exchange the lead as well as some physical contact as the two of them scratched and clawed to get to the finish line first. Both are former soccer players and they looked like they were trying to win the same ball at times over the final 150.

After four consecutive years of foreign-born stars Lukas Verzbicas (Lithuania) and Edward Cheserek (Kenya) winning Foot Locker titles, the page was turned on a new era. The three juniors out front on Saturday are not only prodigious talents but the heirs of hugely rich genetics.

Fisher's father, Dan, was a 14:12/30:20 guy at Arizona State in the 1980s and placed fourth in the 1986 Pac-10 Cross Country Championships. (Scannell was his college roommate at ASU).

Dressel's father, Alex, was a member of Arkansas' 1992 NCAA Championship cross country team. His aunt, Lisa, was 25th at the 1988 Foot Locker finals and went on to run at Wisconsin and Auburn.

And Maton, who was at the front of the pack nearly the entire way on Saturday, is the son of two NCAA champions. His father, Jim, won the 1988 Indoor 800 meters for Eastern Illinois. His mother, Michelle, a South Africa native, won the 1988 cross country championship, running barefoot, for Indiana.

All three of them are influenced or have received coaching from their parents.

Fisher knew that a slow early pace could play into his hands. After all, he's run 3:50 for 1,500 meters and his kick has been lethal all season. What was unclear was how this miler would fare on his first national stage in cross country, but his speed and tenacity won the day.

As for Dressel, just imagine if he had won. That would have meant that in back to back weeks two different athletes from the Greater Spokane League in Washington would have each won a national championship meet.

Dressel took inspiration from Kai Wilmot's victory at NXN in Portland – among Washington's other successes in that meet – and wanted to bring Spokane its first Foot Locker championship. He settled for a well-fought effort and second place.

Maton said he lost a little bit of ground on the final downhill and said he feared that he might lose control if he had gone full throttle after Fisher and Dressel. And then at the bottom of the hill, with the front two pulling the best out of one another, Maton couldn't make up the ground.

Never before in the history of Foot Locker have non-seniors finished 1-2-3 in the boys race.
And that adds an early jolt of excitement to 2014 and the prospect that all three could be back again. On top of that, eight of the top 13 were juniors.

"Whoever wins next year might have to break the course record," Maton said.

That would be heady stuff indeed.

The top senior in the race was fourth-place finisher Mickey Burke of Rush-Henrietta, N.Y., in 15:20. Senior Joe Hardy of Seattle Prep was fifth in 15:22.