MARATHON’S VANCE BURSA RACES TO 9TH PLACE AT STATE MEET

Marathon’s cross country team made the long drive to Tallahassee for the Nov. 4 FHSAA 1A Cross Country State Championships at Apalachee Regional Park. The top finisher for the Dolphins was no surprise – Vaclav “Vance” Bursa has been first at the finish line all season long, and his 16:18 ninth-place finish in Tallahassee placed him in an elite group of runners, most of whom graduate in May. 

Bursa is a truly talented runner who loves to chase, something he did not get to experience much this season because he was often so far in front of the rest of the field. At states, he had plenty of opportunities to run down his competition. Running his plan, developed with coach Jim Murphy, Bursa executed what Murphy called “a perfect race.”

“My strategy was to start a little slower, then pick people off,” Bursa said. “At first I was in 45th place, at the half-mile I was at 31, and at the halfway point I was 21. Then I began to pick people off and finished in ninth.” Bursa set a new personal record by three seconds and is already thinking about goals for next season.  

“I want to be in the 15s,” he said. Bursa will need to drop an additional 18 seconds from his current best time, an entirely attainable goal for a runner with his work ethic and talent.

Vance will not be the only Dolphin back for more in 2023, nor will he be the only Bursa. Brothers Jakub and Antonin “Tony” are a junior and seventh grader, respectively, and every single state-qualifying Dolphin is eligible for a minimum of one more year, with a few who won’t hang up their racing flats until 2029. 

The Lady Fins are similarly built for the future, with Marathon’s top three finishers on Nov. 4 still in middle school. Top finisher Sara Robinson, who qualified for the meet despite running at regionals while under the weather, completed the course in 23:21, which put her in 157th place. 

“Sara crushed it,” said girls coach Darby Sheehan. “She was looking strong the entire race.”

The Lady Fins have been running in pack formation this season, supporting one another at times and challenging at others. The larger field of competition in Tallahassee made staying together challenging, but the girls didn’t abandon their strategy entirely. 

“The girls stayed as a pack at the start, then they paired up,” Sheehan explained, giving them motivation and an extra push to get over the steep hills Keys runners often find challenging. Their close-knit team mentality has been the key to their success this season, and could easily mean a fifth consecutive state appearance in 2023.  

Marathon’s boys and girls cross country teams have become a mainstay in distance running, and it appears they aren’t going away any time soon. Both the girls and boys teams qualified for the state championships in Tallahassee, a feat accomplished by only 32 teams statewide.  

Marathon seems to relish its reputation as the little school that could. In the past few years, it had a district-winning track and field team with no track, a state-qualifying high jumper with no pit, and one of the top cross country programs in the state with no grass or hills on which to train. The Dolphins seem to have an element of magic to make all of this happen, but the driving force behind each and every one of these events is head coach Murphy, whose eight consecutive state appearances at the FHSAA 1A Cross Country Championships were built on relentless research, hard work and a dedication to his athletes, many of whom he coaches for seven years. When pressed for the magic ingredient of his programs’ success, he said, “Consistency. There’s something to be said for individual sports and consistency. You take what you’ve built and if it isn’t broken, you keep doing what you have done but add a little each year.” 

STATE MEET RESULTS

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