Guilderland’s Roland Graves knew he couldn’t lose this race. Not with Brian Rhodes-Devey on a cell phone thousands of miles away listening to his mother giving a play-by-play account.
Graves passed Thousand Island’s Jacob Smith in the final 500 meters and held on for a one-second victory in the boys large school division race at Saturday’s Guilderland Invitational.
I didn’t think I could sprint as far as I did, said Graves.
After crossing the finish line in a time of 14:01, Graves was greeted by his teammates and the cell phone with Rhodes-Devey ` who won the last three Guilderland Invitationals ` on the other end calling from the University of Texas.
`I’ve been talking to him all week,` said Graves. `He helped me make my race plan.`
Graves and Smith dueled from the first mile to the finish line. Graves gained an advantage on the top portion of the hilly Tawa-sentha Park course, but Smith was on his heels when the two approached `Suicide Hill` ` the 1/8-mile steep, twisting decline heading toward the finish line.
`Coming down Suicide, I didn’t want to look, but I did and he was right by me,` said Graves. `That made me nervous.`
Smith passed Graves coming off `Suicide Hill,` but Graves found an extra gear and passed Smith back to extend Guilder-land’s streak of individual cham-pions to four years.
`Last year, I got to train with (Rhodes-Devey), and it really helped me,` said Graves. `This year, I wanted to make a name for myself.`
Graves’ victory helped the Dutchmen finish second in the team standings with 58 points, 15 points behind large school division champion Burnt Hills.
`I had a few kids (today) who haven’t clicked yet, which is encouraging because I know they’re capable of doing that,` said Guilderland coach Bob Oates.
Justin Veldhuis (ninth place, 14:52), Kevin Sheehan (13th, 15:04), Gianni Vissat (17th, 15:12) and Will Russo (18th, 15:25) rounded out Guilderland’s top five.
The Guilderland girls placed third in the large school division with 112 points. Lynley Joynt (18th place, 18:02) and Erin Mossop (19th, 18:05) placed in the top 20 for the Lady Dutch.“