Freshman Marcelo Mantecon goes sub-9 (8:55)

8:39 for the winner, happy to see these results coming from the great Sunshine State GO GATORS

4:27/4:28 damn even splits

The winner, Riley Smith, a senior signed with Florida, dropped a 9 second pr, closing in 58, dropping Patrick Koon, who ran 8:44.95 as a junior, by three seconds. That tells me that he is a threat to run mid to low 8:30s against the top national competition. Just very impressive to see times like this. Of course, Mantecon has impressed for years already and an 8:55 3200m as a freshman in March. As far as I could see, Keegan Smith has the national freshman record at 8:52.96, which broke the previous record of 8:58, so Mantecon is very close.

wate.com

Knoxville Catholic freshman sets record in 3200

reecevanhaaften

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WATE) — Knoxville Catholic freshman Keegan Smith crossed the line in 8:52.96 at the Eastern Relays in Louisville to set a national freshman record in the 3200 meters. The previous …

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And it’s only March, so he has lots of time to break it

I've seen a bunch of threads about this kid over the years but have never seen anyone answer the question of what his age is. Until I see that answered I'm going to assume it's a Keegan Smith situation where he is old for his grade. Still a fantastic run but hard to be excited for a "freshman" breaking nine when he could be the age of a junior.

For real. There’s a kid who goes to the high school I graduated from running amazing times as a junior, but he is 18 years old. I turned 18 years old in September of my freshman year of college.

He is 14

So he is not so old in his grade. Many freshmen have turned 15 by now.

This is a huge time for Smith and great times for Florida kids. Proud to be a Florida alum. I was running 9:16 in high school and was one of the better kids back in the day.Now that time get's you blasted.

Hopefully UF is able to coach and improves these kids, but they've been ruining Florida kids for years. Are both Ruiz brothers going to UF also?

I’ve never understood why UF has always been such a dead end for distance runners, I’ve seen so much talent fizzle there under different coaches. I know the weather isn’t ideal but there are good places to run in Gainesville and let’s not forget it was a distance running Mecca in the 60s/70s

I agree. The only thing I can think of is a lot of Florida kids prefer to stay in state, can get a good education at UF, and the girls at UF are top notch. They do ok middle distance wise and always have, but not develop Florida kids in the longer distances well at all the last couple of decades. There have been a decent guy here and there but overall most don't make that jump into really good (sub 14 and sub 29) runners.

At least Mantecon can say that he is running faster than Keegan Smith runs now.

I feel like its the opposite a lot of times for the truly elite kids though. A lot of 9:00 kids have been going to Florida, but they couldn't keep Charles Hicks home, or Rheinhardt Harrison, or Patrick Koon. Maybe Riley Smith can start to change that, he's been very impressive recently.

Ruining in what sense? The truly elite kids leave the state for legitimate programs. FSU depends on foreigners. UF has had terrible coaching and invested very little in distance. Whatever leftovers go there may have just been a lot of hype for Florida but what did they do at national hs meets? Don’t start me on the Leon boys burning out in high school and having little left for uni.

Name me a Belen runner who ran well in college? I can think of quite a few that fizzled at various schools over the years.

It's not the kids faults.. the coach is renowned in interviews to explain this, that since only 1% of kids even make it, high school is their time to go all-in and be the best they can, thus the double thresholds, high mileage, and insane intensity which leads to burnout and injury, but it's part of their culture. They all sign up for this.

Belen consistently develops great runners and teams and has had some top notch individuals, but Montecon is a level of talent above that. Though I went to a rival school, I am very excited to see what he does. He does not appear overly (physically) mature for his age, and he just seems like a total gamer. The bigger the meet, the better he does. Sky is the limit for him I hope.

Did you run, just curious as I ran in Florida in the late 80s.