But who can forget the Arcadia Invitational in 2001? This could be the greatest men's high school mile field EVER. The twins were going up against the great Alan Webb and today's top American marathoner Ryan Hall, who at the time was considered a mile specialist. The twins hung on to third and fourth through much of the race, with Webb and Hall leading. Webb dropped a major surge to close the race, putting a hurt on Hall who tried to keep up. The Jefferson boys used the opportunity and blew by Ryan Hall to finish in second and third. John was second in 4:05.52 (4:04.12 1600) and Sean was third in 4:07.25. This was a huge PR of about 7 seconds for John! Webb went 4:01.87, Hall 4:08.37.Coming off of that race, they still had the Distance Medley to worry about... they would have to battle the other top rated DMR team in the country, that being South Lake, VA anchored by--you guessed it--Alan Webb. The teams had a bit of a rivalry built up already. They battled a month before at Nike Indoors, where they ran the second and third fastest indoor DMR times ever with Atlantic winning 10:03.70 to 10:05.72. But did the Atlantic team really have a shot when their most important legs had just ran well under 4:10? Their other two legs also already had a race under their belts with Kenny Schappert having run a 4:22 mile earlier in the day and Preston Bean ran a 52.67 400.Sean opened the race for Atlantic with a huge time of 3:03 for the 1200, handing off to Bean with a good lead. Preston held on to the lead with a 50.4 split and gave the stick to Kenny who extended the lead with his 1:55 split. Then it came down to the two anchors: John Jefferson vs. Alan Webb. Webb closed the race with a 4-flat leg!! But Sean, given a 10 second lead by his teammates, just about repeated his earlier mile time to run a 4:06 and hold off Webb. It was the third best time ever in the DMR, 9:57.88! No other Florida team has ever gone under the 10 minute mark... and it may be a while until we ever see it happen again.http://fl.milesplit.com/articles/25794/all-decade-team-john-jefferson
Lenny Leonard wrote:
Yes, Torreses (Torri?) were exceptional
Sean and John Jefferson were both 4:05-4:06 milers if I recall.
Brad and Brent Hauser
And of course our supreme overloads, Robert and Weldon