Author: Suncoast Orienteering

While much of the military world had their eyes glued to the television watching the Army/Navy football game, over 550 JROTC cadets and their leaders competed in a different sport. Of course, I’m talking about orienteering. The competitions were held to see which teams would attend the Navy National Orienteering Championships, Area 10 (North Florida with the southern bits of Georgia and Alabama), competing at Elinor Klapp Phipps Park in Tallahassee. In contrast, Areas 11 and 12 (most of the rest of Florida linked up at Kelly Park.

Wasn’t that excellent weather for orienteering?

Thank you to Blaik Mathews for managing the logistics for not just one but two orienteering events while dealing with a sad family event in South Carolina. The man is incredibly dedicated to our sport. 

I found myself handling the in-forest arrangements for the Tallahassee event. It is a beautiful park with some topography and lots of trails. However, the bush was thick in places, so the orienteers probably found more trail running than usual. 

Big hand to Rob Antolino of Rehobeth HS JROTC, who came over from Alabama to be the JROTC event director. Another to Trey Cottrell, a parent volunteer at Tallahassee’s Lincoln HS. Between them, they scored all the park permissions and kept this orienteer from going wild with anxiety. (Do you know what is also unique about Trey? His son has graduated and is on to university, but Trey is sticking around to help the team at Lincoln.

Then there is Fey Wright, a first-year instructor at Lincoln who surprised herself was responsible for getting a power generator to run all our event electronics. Not only did she find one, but she also got it donated, as the business owner wanted to support the JROTC. (Here is where I apologize for being unable to plug the business.)

Mike Engestrom stepped in to run the event Livelox, and he did a great job!  “We tracked 148 orienteers on six different courses,” said Mike. “And we could locate at least one participant to return to the mapped area and the Finish after being lost.” 

Meanwhile, over at Kelly Park, the good folks at Florida Orienteering were pulling many hands on deck as ‘old reliable’ Blaik Mathews went north to South Carolina. On top of that, the folks at Wekiva State Park refused to open the gate to allow the usual shared park for orienteering. But from the look of it, the FLO course setters put markers out in Kelly East and West, enough to set thoughtful legs and require the orienteers to be careful as the control they were seeing may not have been the one they were seeking.

What are the event headlines? 

• Vanguard orienteer Noah Archer sets a record by becoming the first to reach 200 Ranking Points before Christmas.
• Farragut, Gaither, Central, and Boca top the Area 11/12 Team competition
• Lee County of Georgia and Nease from the JAX area took top honors in Tallahassee.
• Gabriela Vanderwalt of Lee County helped her team, winning her Green course by an impressive 15 minutes. Pay attention, OUSA Junior Team!
• West Nassau’s leader, Ed Spezio, announced the team will go to Texas to defend their AFJROTC national championship title. GO FOR IT, WARRIORS! 

That’s it for the report, but you can enjoy reviewing the courses and actions through Livelox, analyzing the results, and finding areas for improvement through Splitsbrowser and other results tools. Visit the Suncoast Orienteering website: https://suncoastorienteering.com. Under the “Events” tab on the menu, click “SOAR Event Results” to view the results tools, or click here to go directly to the EKP results, including Results by Class, Splits Browser Tables, and Livelox Results/Replays.

Gord Hunter
Suncoast Orienteering
12/18/2024

I often say this as I talk to people participating in one of Suncoast Orienteering’s urban events. Last Saturday, we were at the University of Florida campus in Gainesville. 

We held our event at U-Florida thanks to the vision of 4^th-year cadet Elise West, a graduate and orienteering team member at Lakewood Ranch HS. Elise had the idea for the event, approached Suncoast Orienteering for technical support, and convinced the Army ROTC leadership that such an event was a great idea. 

As it came to fruition and on the day of the event, Cadet West’s student colleagues and instructors were ever present and crucial to opening the doors – sometimes literally- to a successful event. 

We were also honored by the presence of the Command Sergeant Major for all the Army ROTC programs in America. 

The event was a big deal for Suncoast Orienteering.

But what about the competition? News headline writers might have put it this way:

• Archer Continues Amazing Results
• Vanguard Uses Strong Green Team to Nip Ridgeview in Overall Team Results
• 135 Cadets From Seven Schools Blitzed Their Way Around UF Campus
• Six Teams Share in the Trophies
• “It Was Amazing!” Exclaimed One Cadet.
• Click Family Couple Completes Orange/Green Double. 
• Nicolas Engestrom Only Finisher of 9 km Blue Course.
• Livelox Display Draws Lots of Attention
• Livelox Review Shows the Complexity of Navigating Among So Many Buildings. “We had to pay attention to where we were going,” said orienteers.
• “No Problems At All” – Reported UF Police Who Were Monitoring the Event.” 
• National ROTC Command Sargeant Major Praises JROTC Orienteers and UF Event Organizers
• “Would Like To Repeat The Event Next Year” – Say UF Leaders
• “We’ll Be Looking For An Optimum Date for 2025-2026” – Says Suncoast’s Gord Hunter 

The sport of competitive orienteering is at its best when we can offer the participants courses where they can make fast decisions on courses with many route choices. It is great to sometimes come out of the forests and find those navigation challenges in more familiar urban areas. 

Gord Hunter
Suncoast Orienteering
December 8, 2024

It was a special day for orienteering in Florida on Nov 16, 2024. Approximately 500 people, primarily high school JROTC cadets, participated in SOAR’s annual Gold Head Branch State Park event in northern Florida. 

Teams came from as far away as central Georgia and Boca Raton, FL.

Nease HS took the top Overall team prize. See the full results at www.floridaorienteering.org

But that was not all. 

We took the occasion to present Florida Orienteering’s Blaik Mathews with Orienteering USA‘s President’s Award, which he had earned along with OCINN’s Dylan Poe for their work in advancing the use of Livelox for tracking participants on their orienteering courses. 

The photo taken during the GHB event shows Blaik with some of the hundreds of event participants who were going to use their smartphones to be tracked on the course. Not only is Livelox a great way to keep our participants safe by knowing where they are, but it is also an excellent device for post-event learning about the best ways to go, just like “game films”.

“Livelox brings a world-class event experience to the parks of Florida,” says one veteran orienteer.

The second photo shows the top Florida JROTC orienteer, Noah Archer, presenting the OUSA President’s Award Mathews to Blaik Mathews. On behalf of OUSA President Clare Durand, thank you, Blaik Mathews.

The group started well. They were part of a training group of Orienteering Ottawa youngsters ready to move from Novice to Intermediate. I have been spending my summer up north in Ottawa, Canada, and have volunteered to help with their junior training program, one evening a week for six weeks.  This was their first session. There were four groups of different ages and levels of experience. My group seemed to be 11- and 12-year-olds with some previous experience, Level 2. The youngsters all could relate the map to the terrain and vice versa. Without the help of the compass, with one of their numbers in the lead, they all headed south beside the school’s running track to the control marker, which they could soon see in the distance. 

Similarly, with Group #2, a new leader emerged, and they successfully followed the path on the map to the control point. This was a significant step forward in their training journey. 

Their competitive juices seemed to be kicking in.  Some would not wait for another person to take the turn leading. Most wanted to go, and they did. The leg was going to be a bit trickier. They had to take the trail about 40 meters, then turn onto the trail on the right, a less distinct trail.  Following ONE, they ALL overran that small trail to another trail junction, this one with a much more distinct trail, made a right turn, and eventually found another marker but with a different code.  We old-timers would say, ‘classic parallel error.’ Others might say, ‘Teachable moment.’

When I undertook a review and asked about measuring the distance they had to go to find that little trail, none seemed to know what I was talking about. On the novice course one rarely needs to measure distance. When the map is of easy terrain, one rarely needs to measure distance. Distance measurement is essential in the forest, even along trails, and when the features may not be so distinct. Reading and recognizing landmarks are also crucial as you go.  

There is a little-known acronym that can be used to help novice navigators moving up to Intermediate and beyond as they remember what they should do to find their way through an orienteering course: “Dee Dee LAP” (DDLAP): Direction, Distance, Landmarks, Attack Point:

• Find your Direction.
• Measure your Distance.
• Pick out and remember what Landmarks you should be seeing.
• Choose an Attack Point to find and guide you into the control point.

Go through that acronym on every leg, and soon, you will recognize that you do not need all the initials on some legs. Direction and Distance may be enough on some very short legs through the woods. On others along a trail or series of trails, Distance and Landmarks may be enough. Pick out those essentials as part of the route choice process. If our group or anyone in the group had known they had only to go 40 meters to find that correct trail and could measure out that 40 meters, they would not have overshot it by twice that distance.

Our group continued around the set course, and more teachable moments occurred. Each of these moments is a step towards our shared goal of improving our orienteering skills.

Happy Orienteering!

Gord Hunter
Suncoast Orienteering
September 14, 2024

Recently we announced how the Florida JROTC cadets rank over the school year in their orienteering competitions.

You can see their individual rankings here: https://rb.gy/9k5bpx

Today, we announce the Team Rankings. Unlike the individual rankings, the teams count points earned from their best five events over the last 12 months. Currently, the points earned from May 2023 to April 2024 are counted in the Team Rankings.

See the team rankings here: https://rb.gy/x6wetu

With four competition categories for teams – Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Overall – who’s on top? Nope. (with apologies to Laurel and Hardy) Gaither is. And so are Central, Lakewood Ranch and Boca Raton, all placing top five in the four categories with Admiral Farragut (2), Titusville and West Nassau (one each) also making it to the top five somewhere.

We currently have 60 Florida high schools listed as competing in at least one orienteering event in the last year.

What gets a team to the top? It seems the top-rated teams have several things in common:

• They come to competitions. You can’t score points if you are not there. A team’s best five competitions over the last year are counted for their standings.

• They have depth on their teams. Gaither, Lakewood Ranch, and Central have teams with 30+ orienteers.

• They have keen cores of individual cadet leaders. In addition to the three above, Farragut, Titusville, Boca, and Venice have well-scoring individuals.

• You don’t have to be a big city school to score big points. Suwannee, DeSoto, and West Nassau are working their way up the leaderboards.

• The time penalty for not having a complete team is severe, but times do not count in the Rankings.

Gord Hunter
Suncoast Orienteering

The Florida State JROTC Orienteering Rankings have now been around for eleven years.

As usual, this year, there are more stories than probably can be told but here goes.

An Example of Growth: In 2013-14, the first year of the Rankings, there were 16 cadets who competed in any of the Advanced Female races all year. This year there were more than twice that many in the State Championships Advanced Female race alone. Seventy-nine names are recorded in the Rankings for this year.

1,677 names of Florida cadets are recorded in this year’s JROTC Rankings. They competed in at least one of 23 events of which three were out-of-state events. The average number of events per team was about three, although the top teams generally had seven or more events to their credit. As they say, “You can’t earn points if you are not there to compete.”

An Example of Competitiveness: There are six categories for the Rankings – Advanced Male and Female, Intermediate Male and Female, and Novice Male and Female. Right to the final the question of who would end up as the Rankings Champion was reasonably up for grabs in four of the six categories and even in the other two a serious stumble by the leaders could have “upset the apple cart.”

An Example of New Teams Rising: Five of the six Rankings Titles were won by cadets from schools that until this year had never won a Rankings title, never in ten previous years. Even perennial strong Gaither had never won in the Rankings. This year they seemed to have put the “pedal to the metal” as Jackson Cardona and Nadia Fuentes of Gaither won the Advanced Male and Female titles.

Abraham Zerpa in Male Intermediate won Boca Raton’s second Rankings title, The first coming in 2016 from Advanced Female, Alicia Castenado. Sydney Bowers of Lemon Bay took the Female Intermediate Rankings title.

In the ‘Watch This Team in the Future’ category North Port cadets Ethan Farnham and Alexas Floyd won, respectively, the Novice Male and Female Ranking titles.

Three of the Rankings champions won medals at the State Orienteering championships while the other three missed ‘podium finishes’ by between five seconds and two minutes. OH! That’s close!

See the 2023-24 Individual Rankings here: https://rb.gy/o12u9t

The updated team Rankings will be following.

The Rankings for the 2024-25 year will start with the May 11th event at Florida Agricultural Museum.

· Hint #1: Be there to give your team a head start on the 2024-2025 Rankings

· Hint #2: Enter your cadets on the course you want them to be running next year so that is where their Ranking Points will go.

Get Your Compass and Our Map, and Let’s Go!

Gord Hunter
Suncoast Orienteering

It was touch and go. Until two days before the weather predictions were for a good chance of thunderstorms during our marquee event at Oscar Scherer State Park on March 23^rd. Then, with a day to go, it was thundershowers overnight with traces of rain during the event. Could things continue to improve? Only time would tell.

Come the Saturday morning, the sun was predicted to shine and the storm had taken a giant turn to the south.  The result: perfect Florida weather for orienteering.  

Our orienteers responded well to the weather. We had some 250 participants, mostly on the  JROTC championship courses but a nice selection of adventure racers, families and teachers.  Very impressive was a group from Lamarque Elementary School, fifth-grade students who blitzed around the Yellow course as competently as students with twice their education.

The JROTC competition was predictably tight and, surprisingly, championship titles were generally not won by those at the top of the season Rankings list but by those making big moves up the list.

Individual Titlists were: 

• Novice Female: Kira Quinn, Lakewood Ranch     Male: Nicoli Cimminio, North Port
• Intermediate Female: Katherine Orozco, DeSoto,   Male: Shane Stokes, Lakewood Ranch
• Advanced Female: Karina Lawrence, Venice     Male: Mason Bryant, Lakewood Ranch

The Novice team title went to Lakewood Ranch but the rest of the way the Suncoast area teams showed their great hospitality by letting the team from Boca Raton HS win the Intermediate, Advanced and Overall titles. The Advanced Green Course title saw Boca winning by a mere 23 seconds over the local squad from Lakewood Ranch.  Go get ‘em at States, Mustangs!

The Rankings? At the end of the day we find ties for first place in not one but two categories. After 20 events that could have spread out the fields, that is not what I expected. Indeed, there is not a single category where we can say with confidence that anyone has the Ranking title sewn up. 

The lead in the Female Novice Class is shared by Jaide Brown of Lakewood Ranch and Alexas Floyd of North Port. The top in the Male Novice category has changed hands several times and is now held by Ethan Farnham of North Port.

Sydney Bowers of Lemon Bay and Dominique Hurst of Admiral Farragut Academy are the co-leaders of the Female Intermediate class with former leader Madison Thedford of Central close behind. Hurst earned an astounding 79 points in the last two weeks with a fourth-place finish at the Navy Nationals and a second at Oscar Scherer.  What a race it will be at the States!

Abraham Zerpa of Boca jumped over Evan Espinoza of Venice for the Male Intermediate lead.  But again: it’s close!

Nadia Fuentes of Gaither has at least five wins for the year. She should be comfortably in the lead in her class but Leah Van Arsdale, Farragut and Karina Lawrence, Venice, have been chalking up wins of their own and don’t count out Kayla Heddleson of Central.  

Jackson Cardona of Gaither is going to be tough to dislodge from the Advanced Male Ranking title but several including Kael Teevan, Ridgeview, and August Lear of Venice have a chance of doing it at the States.  

But at the States keep an eye on Noah Archer of Vanguard in Ocala. A high school sophomore, Archer is an up and comer for sure and with the state championships being held some 20 miles from home he should not have the fatigue of a long drive to contend with.

Back to the Oscar Scherer event: thank you to the staff of Oscar Scherer State Park, welcoming our event for about the 13^th time. Special Thanks to Ranger Berube for retrieving an exhausted orienteer from the far reaches of our area. Good thinking by the cadets who saw an alligator resting on their trail and let it be.

We did have a problem with lined up entries into the park and we will work on that issue with park officials.  Our apologies to those caught in that line up which I understand lasted for some 40 minutes at times. Thank you to cadets, leaders, parents and others for helping make our event a success. A biggest thank you to Captain Krom and his team of host cadets and to Blaik Mathews of Florida Orienteering for their key help in staging this event.

Gord Hunter
Suncoast Orienteering
March 25, 2024

Did you know that between January 12^th and March 9^th there have been nine weekends? Did you know that in those nine weekends Suncoast Orienteering has staged 10 days of orienteering competitions bringing 11 distinct competitions to Florida? Ten days, eleven competitions: how did we do that? I’ll explain that later.

That’s quite a string, indeed.

In the course of 11 competitions, we had 1,623 entries.

For each entry, we pay a levy of $2 to Orienteering USA to help pay our insurance costs. That’s $3,246 for O-USA.

Those 11 competitions were spread across seven Florida counties.

In the JROTC portion of these events 38 different schools have participated including four from out-of- state.

The Florida schools have ranged from West Nassau in the north to Key West in the south.

They have represented JROTC units affiliated with the Navy, Air Force, Army, Marines, and Coast Guard. 

Over the course of the eleven events, Venice, Suwannee, and Dunedin have each sent teams to five events. 

That’s it for the string. Due to many teams being on Spring Break and four top Florida teams being at the Navy Nationals we will not have a competition next weekend but get ready for March 23^rd at Oscar Scherer State Park and the 10^thAnnual Suncoast Orienteering Championships. 

The Suncoast Championships have two features worth the attention of all of those 38 teams.

• Each team earns a discount on their entry fees equal to  $1 per orienteer per Suncoast event entered up to three events stretching back to November 2023. 
• As a regional championship, JROTC orienteers earn a 25% bonus on the ranking points they would otherwise earn in a standard event. 

We are looking forward to a great turnout and a great event at Oscar Scherer on the 23^rd. See you there.

Oh, the 11 competitions in 10 days: the extra event happened in February. We were hosting one of a series of Florida orienteering events at Jay B Starkey Wilderness Park in Pasco County. The chance came up to host the AFJROTC orienteering nationals, and we jumped at the chance. We used the same courses for our Florida event and Day 1 of the AFJROTC champs. Over 250 participants and 20 schools in one day.

Gord Hunter

Suncoast Orienteering