Fleshman, Spiker Go Coast to Coast

Lauren Fleshman of Canyon High and Josh Spiker of Ventura, the region’s top cross-country runners all season, will be shooting for All-American honors when the national championships are held today at the Oaks Trail Course at Shades of Green in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Fleshman, a senior, wants to finish in the top 10 after placing 14th last year.

Spiker, a junior, is looking for a top-15 finish in his first appearance at the national meet that began in 1979.

The top five finishers in each race are first-team All-American. The sixth- through 10th-place finishers will be named to the second team and the 11th through 15th will be selected to the third.

Fleshman’s goal might seem a bit low for someone whose only two losses this season have come to favored sophomore Sara Bei of Santa Rosa Montgomery. But Fleshman says it’s hard to predict finishes in a race that will include the top eight finishers from the West, Midwest, Northeast and South regionals.

“It’s a really big dream to finish in the top five,” she said. “But I’ll be happy with anything in the top 10.”

Senior Erin Sullivan of Mt. Mansfield High in Jericho, Vt., junior Jillian Mastroianni of Sayville, N.Y., and senior Lyndsi Gay of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, are considered Bei’s biggest challengers, although some experts regard Fleshman as a sleeper pick.

Sullivan, who won the national title by 29 seconds last year, was undefeated until she faded from first to sixth in the final half-mile of the Northeast regional two weeks ago.

Mastroianni won that race and Gay placed first in the Midwest regional in Kenosha, Wisc.

Senior Jorge Torres of Wheeling, Ill., and senior Andy Powell of Ames High in North Easton, Mass., are the co-favorites in the boys’ race.

Torres, the Midwest champion, is making an unprecedented fourth consecutive appearance in the boys’ race after finishing second last year, fifth in 1996 and 13th in ’95.

Powell, 20th last year, won the Northeast regional by 18 seconds.

Spiker, Southern Section Division I champion, finished third in the West regional after running conservatively in the first mile, but he plans to go out with the leaders today.

“[Ventura Coach Bill Tokar] told me, ‘You weren’t supposed to [make it to nationals] so you might as well go for it,’ ” Spiker said. “So I just want to go out hard and see what happens. If I die, I die.”