Sam Chandler
Cole Stidfole
Cole Stidfole leads the pack past the one-mile mark at Thursday's Hoover Invitational.
Oak Mountain standout Cole Stidfole, Alabama’s top-ranked prep runner, posted a time of 16:29.94 and cruised to his fourth victory of the season on Thursday afternoon at the Hoover Invitational.
Although Stidfole and his Oak Mountain teammates trained through the race in preparation for the state championship series, he still managed to out duel Hewitt-Trussville’s John Ngaruiya and Hoover’s Tommy McDonough on a toasty afternoon at Veterans Park.
“It was pretty good. I mean I didn’t feel great because we were training through this meet, just using it as another workout, so I just did like a tempo pace,” Stidfole said. “I didn’t have to push it too hard to win, so it was a good race.”
Stidfole led a bulky lead pack through the mile right around the five-minute mark before gradually pulling away over the race’s remaining two-plus miles.
As a team, the Oak Mountain boys secured a fifth-place finish, totaling 121 points.
“Overall, we kind of did what we wanted to do here. We’re really more worried about the training of this race than the actual race itself,” Oak Mountain coach Kyle Dudley said. “We’re just kind of trying to gear our team up for sectionals in a couple weeks.”
Individually, Stidfole will enter the championship season having already posted a time of 15:20.45 on the state meet course, Moulton’s Indian Mounds Park. Clocked at the Jesse Owens Classic on Oct. 3, his blistering time is currently 19 seconds faster than any other 7A runner. Although Stidfole has created a clear gap between himself and the competition, he knows that anything can happen on a given day.
“I’m pretty confident, but you can’t be over yourself, like be too confident, because there’s always somebody that could come up there and take it from you,” Stidfole said. “You’ve just got to be ready for everybody and just give your best effort.”
