As he toed the line at the start of the Anne Arundel County indoor track championships on Jan. 17, Broadneck's Matt Llano knew the race for the 800-meter county title would come down to him and Arundel's Greg Marshall.
Marshall had beaten him earlier in the year and Llano was out to avenge the loss.
Llano began the race in the lead, but the two runners switched off between first and second during the first lap, with Llano regaining the lead headed into the home stretch. "I knew he was a good sprinter and that if he got a lead, he would be hard to catch," Llano said of Marshall. "I knew I couldn't let him get too far away from me."
As he headed for the finish line, Llano began to hear Marshall's footsteps behind him. "The crowd started to get louder and louder," Llano said. "I thought, 'Here he comes. I can't let this happen again. I just can't.' "
Llano dug deep and ran hard.
The next thing that happened was, for Llano, a blur. The two runners finished at almost precisely the same moment. Neither could tell who had won the race. "It was one of those photo finishes," Llano said. "We both looked at each other and said, 'Who won?'"
Then the judges announced the result. The last second push by Llano had paid off. He was the county champion of the 800 meters. "I just think that Matt wanted it a little more," said teammate Robin Yerkes. "He pushed a little harder."
That determination and drive to succeed are representative of Llano's attitude both on the track and in the classroom, teammates said.
In addition to his county title in the 800 meters, Llano won the 1,600-meter county title in both indoor and outdoor track last year. This year, the senior has gotten his mile time down to 4 minutes, 25 seconds and hopes to lower that time by the state meet.
Llano succeeds in the classroom as well. He's the president of the National Honor Society, volunteers at Noah's Ark Wildlife Center - helping sick and injured animals get healthy and return to the wild - and spends much of his free time studying.
Next year, he plans to attend the University of Richmond, where he wants to study to become either a doctor or a veterinarian.
He said running has helped with his studies. "It sets me on a schedule," Llano said. "I know as soon as I get home from practice, I have to eat healthy and I have to study right away, so I can go to bed at a decent time. Running gives me a level of discipline."
Running so permeates his life that Llano even wrote his college essays about the sport.
"I can tell you that running makes me feel free and relaxed," he wrote in a supplemental essay he sent to Richmond. "I stay active with my school, athletic and work responsibilities. Running serves as my outlet from these realities - my time to escape all of my worries and clear my mind."
Llano is one of the most successful runners in Anne Arundel County. He trains with Matt Centrowitz, The Sun's All-Metro Runner of the Year. Llano's fourth-place finish and Centrowitz's title at the state meet helped Broadneck retain the team state title in the fall.
Llano said he doesn't mind sometimes being in Centrowitz's shadow.
"I don't really look at it as a No. 2 role," he said. "I look at it as us running together as a team. We're training partners. We run together every day. Without him, I don't know how hard I would be pushing myself. I just think of it as an honor to be running with him."
Centrowitz said he and Llano push each other to be the best.
"He's a real true competitor," Centrowitz said of Llano. "If, during a workout, I'm slacking off the pace, I know he'll be right behind me. We push each other."
Both athletes got into running as a way to train for soccer in the offseason. Both immediately excelled at the sport and found their athletic callings.
Standing 5-foot-7 and weighing 130 pounds, Llano realized that he has a good runner's build, and he joined the cross country team as a junior.
"If I was going to have a future in something, it wouldn't really be soccer," he said. "I was all right at soccer, but I was nothing special. I felt I could be a really good runner."
His indoor track teammates are glad he chose their sport.
Yerkes, a senior on the indoor track team and a county champion in the 55-meter and 300-meter events, said Llano, a team captain, is a first-class leader.
"He's awesome," she said. "Everyone takes him seriously. He has a drive to be perfect. He's a really good student in school. The fact that he works so hard in school definitely crosses over into his running. All the effort he puts into school, he puts the same effort into running."
Co-captain John Sabol, a senior, agreed.
"He's by far the most dedicated person on the team," Sabol said of Llano. "He never misses a day. Even on days we have off, he goes for a run. I think he really enjoys running. He gets a high out of it."