M16-18 at Barks & Brews 5K: Capelli Dominates, Arias Makes a Move

• Thomas Capelli won the M16-18 group in 16:03 (5:10/mi), posting the 2nd-fastest split on the 1M→Finish stretch among all men in the race.
• Emil Lev-Twombly was a clear runner-up at 16:28 — just 25 seconds back — with the 5th-fastest 1M→Finish split among the men.
• Jarrett Arias climbed from 17th to 13th among men on the closing stretch, finishing 3rd in the age group in 18:11.
• A wide spread defined the field: more than 37 minutes separated Capelli's winning time from Johnny Nari's 12th-place 53:13.

Thomas Capelli, 16, from El Dorado Hills, ran the kind of race that makes a statement. His 16:03 at 5:10 per mile held steady at 3rd among the men throughout, and his closing split — 2nd-fastest among all male finishers on the final stretch — showed he wasn't coasting. In a 5K on a warm Sacramento morning at 73°F, that kind of sustained pace demands respect.

Emil Lev-Twombly of Carmichael pushed him the whole way, finishing in 16:28 with the 5th-fastest closing split among the men. The 25-second gap between first and second is real, but Lev-Twombly's performance was genuinely strong — he simply ran into a buzz saw at the front. Jarrett Arias rounded out the podium in 18:11, and his finish tells its own story: he moved from 17th to 13th among the men on the back half, posting the 13th-fastest closing split in the men's field. He was clearly finding another gear when others weren't.

Behind the top three, the M16-18 group spread out considerably. Sawyer Koelling (18, Fairfield) was 4th in 22:50, followed by Kyle Mckay at 24:26. Joshua Rodriguez and Julian Kanz were essentially side by side — 27:16 and 27:18 — separated by just two seconds at the line, with Rodriguez edging ahead. The back half of the field, from Jacob Rodriguez through Johnny Nari, covered a wide range of paces and efforts, all of them finishing a Barks & Brews 5K on a clear Memorial Day weekend morning. Twelve started, twelve finished — that counts.