Boys Cross County Player of the Year: SMCC's Brian Ferber

Brian Ferber had a stellar cross country season for St. Mary Central Catholic in 2008.

The junior led the blue and gold to the regional meet, captured the individual district crown and finished fourth at the regional meet in the process.

But his personal-best performance of 16 minutes and 20 seconds in the Division III race at the state cross country meet solidifies him as the Fandy.com Magazine Boys' Cross Country Runner of the Year for 2008.

"I'm very honored," Ferber said. "I'm happy to stay healthy for the whole season and run as good as I did. All the credit goes to the coaches. I'm very grateful for all the awards I've gotten this year."

At the state meet, Ferber used a 4:59 first mile to jump out into 10th place in the early going. He maintained a strong pace throughout the remaining two miles to run to a 17th-place finish, earning one of the 25 spots as a Division III all-Ohio runner.

"I expected him to do that well," Leech said. "He ran all summer long. He just keeps getting better and better. We put some speed work on him, and he took off and ran better times from there."

Leading up to the championship part of the season, Ferber ran away with the Northwest Ohio Catholic Schools Association Invitational and the Fostoria Invitational. He also placed second at the SBC meet in 16:37 a few weeks prior to the state meet.

And once he got back to Columbus this year, Ferber quickly erased the memory of his time of 17:16 from his first trip to the state meet in 2007.

"Our coaches prepared us pretty well," Ferber said. "(Coach Leech) told us at the end of last season to practice hard during the summer. If we practiced hard and ran hard every race, he said we would do well."

Now that Ferber has shown he has the ability to cut down on his time from one season to the next, his possibilities for further improvement are still strong.

"The 15s are in his reach," Leech said. "If he continues to train like he did last year, running the in the 15s should be no problem."

Ferber has his sites set on achieving the same type of goals next season as well.

"Next year I'm just going to go for top 15, maybe top 10, top 5 (at state)," Ferber said. "I'm just going to prepare myself hard for state, starting in July."