Beyond Endurance, Part 1

Credits: Katherine Terino

The full history of Vestavia Hills High School’s boys cross country team is long and complex, so for the sake of brevity, our story will start in the fall of 2017.

Senior James Sweeny and junior Bryce Hutchinson were poised to lead the team. There was also a phenom freshman aging onto the team, his name was Ethan Strand. The team had a strong season opener at Chickasaw Trails with James Sweeney taking second place in a time of 15:40 narrowly losing to Homewood’s Will Stone with the rest of the top 5 averaging 16:40. Their next race was at the Panther Prowl where James won in 15:32 and Ethan Strand had his first varsity appearance in a time of 16:11. The team’s next big race was Jesse Owens where again James lost out to Will Stone this time running a PR of 15:25. With Jesse Owens over, the Rebels began preparing for their championship races. Their sectional race was a great day for the Rebels, qualifying for state with only 62 points and 3 of their runners in the top 10. At the state tournament, James won in a convincing fashion, with the team getting 3rd overall. With the end of state marked the end of cross country and the start of indoor track.

Indoor was kind to the Rebels. At the state tournament, the Rebels got 6th in the 4x800, Ethan got 8th in the 800m, Bryce placed 7th in the 1600m and 2nd in the 3200m, and James pulled off the difficult 1600m and 3200m sweep. These performances helped propel the Rebels to an incredible runner-up finish in the state tournament. As great as the indoor season was, it was only a prelude to the dominance the Rebels would show in the outdoor season. Before outdoor state, the meet to run fast at is the Mountain Brook Invitational, and the Rebel trio did not disappoint, taking the first, second, and third places in the varsity 2-mile with impressive performances in the mile as well.

At the state tournament that year, the Rebels separated themselves from the pack, and Ethan found his stride. Ethan won the 1600m, with James and Bryce getting 5th and 7th. In the 3200m, the Rebels owned the podium, going first through third again, all finishing within 1 second of each other. With that performance, the Rebels ended their season with another runner-up team finish.

Heading into next season, the Rebels were looking to be even stronger than they were the previous year, despite James graduating and heading off to the University of Butler to run in college. In their season opener at Chickasaw Trails, the Rebels came in second, with Ethan and Bryce getting fourth and fifth. Jesse Owens wouldn’t be so great for the Rebels, with Ethan coming in second place by only 7 seconds and the team coming in sixth. The Rebels would bounce back in a big way at state that year with Ethan Strand winning the individual state title as only a sophomore in a time of 15:24, beating Hunter Harwell of Mountain Brook by less than a second. Bryce got seventh, and junior John Ingram got fifteenth, earning themselves all-state honors. More incredibly, every Vestavia boy set a personal record in the race. As great a day the Rebels had, they still came in second as a team to Huntsville.

Moving out of cross country, the indoor season would be a real challenge for the Rebels. At the state tournament, the Rebels would get fourth in the 4x800m relay, Ethan and Bryce would get first and fourth in the 1600m, and only get third and fourth in the 3200m, where they had placed first and second just 8 months prior. Again, the Rebels would come runner-up to Hoover in the team race. In outdoor track, the Rebels' first big meet at Mountain Brook was a step in the right direction, with Ethan and Bryce getting second and sixth in the mile and first and second in the 2-mile. These performances gave Ethan a lot of momentum heading into state, where he pulled off the 800m, 1600m, and 3200m triple, winning in times of 1:54, 4:18, and 9:21, winning every race by a second or less. The Rebels would also get fourth in the 4x800m, and Bryce would get fifth in the 3200m. The Rebels would lose again to Hoover, but Ethan would individually bring in 30 of the 62.5 points that the Rebels scored.

Going into the 2019 cross country season, the Rebels did lose Bryce Hutchinson, who graduated and went on to run at Purdue, but a pair of freshmen would fill the shoes Bryce left behind. This was the year that freshmen Alex Leath and Will Jordan joined the team. The Rebels had a tough race schedule running Chickasaw Trails, Southern Showcase, Jesse Owens, and the Coach Wood Invitational all in one season. The Rebels had a strong showing at Chickasaw coming second to Huntsville in the team race with Ethan coming second individually in 15:57. At Southern Showcase Ethan would have a breakout run winning the Championship race in a blistering 15:03 with teammates John Ingram and Alex Leath running 16:06 and 16:16. Jesse Owens would give the Rebels a harder time with Ethan winning the race but the rest of the team would fall back to third. At the Coach Wood Invitational in Georgia, Ethan would lose his winning streak, coming in fourth with a 15:04. The rest of the squad averaged 16:03 for a fifth-place team finish. At state, the Rebels would have another great day with Ethan defending his title, running 15:18. John Ingram, Andrew Precise, and Alex Leath would come in ninth, tenth, and thirteenth, running 15:50, 16:00, and 16:03, earning all-state honors in the process. Sadly, the Rebels would again come second to Huntsville High despite running the fastest team average ever at Vestavia of 15:55.

After state, Ethan would make a run for the Foot Locker National Championship, qualifying for the National Championship race in the Foot Locker South Regional in sixth place. Later at Nationals, Ethan placed twenty-ninth. The indoor season would be a tough one for the Rebels. Leading up to state, Ethan was in great form, running sub 2 minutes in the 800m, sub 4:20 in the 1600m, and 9 flat in the 3200m; however, an injury would keep Ethan from competing at state. The state meet that year would be tough with the Rebels not scoring in the 3200m or 1600m, and also only getting fifth in the 4x800m. There was a silver lining in their freshman Alex Leath. Alex ran 1:58 in the 800m to get fifth for the Rebels as only a freshman. The outdoor season wouldn’t be a fairytale either, with the latter half of the season being canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the disappointment that was their track season, the Rebels attacked the cross-country season with a passion. At the Southern Showcase meet Ethan Strand ran the school record that still stands today at 14:36, winning the individual race and silencing any critics who thought he wasn’t fit due to his injury last year. Alex would also have a great day, breaking 16 minutes for the first time in a run of 15:57. At Jesse Owens, Ethan would have another convincing win, running 15:02. The rest of the Rebels would also set great marks, helping the team place second behind Huntsville again. At State, the Rebels would have a disaster of a day with Ethan falling back to twelfth and the Rebels as a whole finishing seventh. With most of the national postseason meets closed, some of the Rebels decided to attend the local meet in Huntsville Runninglane Nationals. Ethan placed fourteenth, running 14:47, and Will Jordan ran a personal record of 15:56.

Moving on to indoor, the Rebels dominated the track. At State, Ethan and Alex would go 1 and 2 in the 800m running 1:51 and 15:52. In the 1600m, Ethan would win in 4:17. In the 3200m, the story would be no different, with Ethan winning in 9:15; the Rebels would also come fourth in the 4x800m. Heading into the outdoor season, the Rebbels looked strong. At the Mountain Brook Invitational, Alex won the 800m in a time of 1:53 with freshmen Max Armstrong and Henry Strand both running 2:02. In the mile, Ethan ran a ridiculous 4:07 to win the event with Alex also running 4:18. And in the 2-mile, Ethan dipped under the 9-minute barrier to win with Will going under 10 minutes. At state that year, Ethan came to race. He won the 800m, 1600m, and 3200m. And he dropped a historic 1:50 split in the 4x800m to take Vestavia from fourth to first. And with a strong third place in the 800m from Alex, the Rebels were able to win the team state title with 104 points, 46 of which came from the distance squad. This final victory marked a transition away from the period of Ethan Strand towards something much greater. I hope that you’ll join us next time for part 2 of this story.