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With the threat of severe weather largely past, the 2016 Miami-Dade County Youth Fair hosted 4 XC races at the all too familiar Larry and Penny in South Miami.  2 JV and 2 Varsity 5K's ensued under partly cloudy, muggy conditions.

JV Girls Top 5 Individuals

Our Lady of Lourdes Academy was an easy team winner placing their top 5 in the top 8.

Official Team Scores - JV Girls Top 5 Teams

JV Boys Top 5 Individuals

As expected, the Belen Jesuit Boys scored an easy victory placing all scorers in the top 10.

Official Team Scores - JV Boys Top 5 Teams

Girls Varsity

In our meet preview we noted that the Ferguson Girls were the defending champions and hadn't race yet in 2016.  True to form, the Lady Falcons took care of business.  We also thought the pre-race favorite would be Gulliver Prep's Natalie Varela would make her high school debut and easily live up to her 2A pre-season accolades.  Notably absent and possibly hoping to extend her season well into late November, Natalie didn't race yesterday opening up the race for the other notable youngsters in the field.

Last Saturday at the Fleet Feet Invitational presented by Saucony we saw a very game Jinah-Mickens Malik from Mater Academy finish 3rd well behind the top 2 athletes who separated early, Pustilnik and Bress.  Jinah-Mickens went sub 20 and looked in control through-out that race a short 5 days ago.  If we look back a year as well, we saw the youth movement at Mater Academy gaining momentum as both Maik and team-mate Ryah Andressohn set the State on notice of their impending arrival amongst the elite's.

Fast forward a year, now both freshman, Malik is still at Mater Academy but Ryah is now a freshman at track power-house Miami Southridge Sr. High School.  One aspect that hasn't changed.  They are now both State contenders.

Ryah won the Youth Fair convincingly in 20:04, with Malik in 2nd at 20:20.  Finishing 3rd and first for the Lady Falcons, eventual team champions, senior Jazmyn Martin in 20:35.

Varsity Girls Top 15 Individuals

Harking back to last week's Fleet Feet Invitational, we had a chance to see Our Lady of Lourdes take to the course where they finished 2nd behind the impressive 2A Satellite Scorpions.  The Youth Fair always figured to be a 3 way tussle between Our Lady of Lourdes, St. Brendan's and Ferguson.

Ferguson took care of business in their first outing of the 2016 XC season scoring a measly 49 points, placing their top 5 in the top 20.  Our Lady of Lourdes was second with 79 and St. Brendan with 111.

Official Team Scores - Girls Varsity Top 10 Teams

Boys Varsity

Looking back at last weekend's washed-out Martin County Under the Lights Invitational, one match-up we were really looking forward to was the Boys varsity race between LPA's Caleb Potorff and Columbus Hellion Deshay Fernandes.  We caught up with Deshay earlier this summer and had seen and heard the big strides he made and wondered if he could now be a State contender. 

Our appetite was wetted even more after seeing DyeStat's #67 ranked Joshua Collins from Belen Jesuit pour it on the last 800 to win easily at last week's Fleet Feet Invitational.  2 top Juniors going head-to-head in the early season was a big reason to be very interested in the Boys Varsity race.

RELATED - Summer interview with Deshay Fernandes | Martin County Interview with Deshay

Last weekend we saw a measured effort from Collins as he went through the first mile in the pack at 5:04 and soon found himself doing most of the work.  Settling in the 2nd mile, he used his strength, his finish, to get the win.  

Joshua found himself in chase mode early on with Deshay gapping the field early on.  A sustained effort to get back in the race saw Collins in the front of Fernandes but that was short-lived as Collins trailed off the back.   From there on out it was all Deshay Fernandes as he continued to pull away from Collins quite easily to get his first meaningful victory in an impressive 16:25.  Deshay's most notable accomplishment to date was his regional 1600 runner-up finish where he clocked 4:25 behind Carlin Berryhill's 4:22.

Last year's champion, Hellion and FSU Frosh, Humberto Freire, also won in 16:25.  Talk about improvement.  Last year, Fernandes finished 9th in 17:20, a 55 second improvement year-over-year.

Columbus Junior Deshay Fernandes wins in 16:22 (Jesus Batista)

Collins finished second in 16:45 followed by team-mate Juan San Martin in 17:10.

Boys Varsity Top 15 Individuals

Belen Boys were easy winners scoring 31.  The real battle was for second with just 6 points separating second from 4th - Every Spot Counts !

Official Team Scores - Boys Varsity Top 10 Teams