Rocket City 10K — M15-19: Pagano leads a clean sweep of North Alabama teens

• Tanner Pagano won the M15-19 age group in 54:54 (8:50/mi), finishing nearly three minutes clear of the field.
• Benjamin Trautman claimed 2nd in 57:49 (9:18/mi), the only other finisher under the one-hour mark.
• Karsten Wallace and Lee Hernandez were separated by just 1:01 at the back of the group, finishing 3rd and 4th in 1:05:34 and 1:06:35 respectively.
• All four finishers hail from North Alabama communities within roughly an hour of Huntsville.

Four teenagers lined up for the M15-19 10K on a mild December morning in Huntsville — 59°F and overcast, about as friendly as Alabama gets in mid-December — and Tanner Pagano made the most of it. The 16-year-old from New Market ran a composed 8:50-per-mile effort to win the age group in 54:54, crossing with nearly three minutes to spare over the runner-up. That margin, in a race of this distance, speaks to a genuinely dominant performance.

Benjamin Trautman, 15, out of Hazel Green, was the only other finisher to break the hour, clocking 57:49 at a 9:18/mi pace to claim a comfortable 2nd. The gap between Trautman and the next finisher — nearly eight minutes — effectively split this small field into two pairs.

At the back, the race got interesting. Karsten Wallace (17, Madison) and Lee Hernandez (17, Oneonta) ran together for much of the course and finished that way, separated by just 61 seconds across 6.2 miles. Wallace held on for 3rd in 1:05:34 while Hernandez came home 4th in 1:06:35 — a tight contest that gave the age group its one genuine battle on the day.