Girls Varsity
Kathryn Foreman of Landmark Hurdles a Haybale at Clinton Farms Image by Pinion Photography
The Girls Varsity Race headlined #1 seed Kathryn Foreman of Landmark Christian. The drama didn’t last long as she took an early lead and never looked back, winning handily in 18:15 for the 3rd best time ever on the Clinton circuit. Note that’s 7 wins in 7 efforts this year. A great race was brewing for 2nd between Ashley Kehoe (seeded 2nd) of Pope and Lindsay Billings (seeded 4th) of Northview. Kehoe held a slight lead at 1 mile, but Billings would come on strong at the end to nab the runner-up spot in 18:43. Kehoe would finish just behind at 18:49.
Roswell’s Rachel VanAmburgh (19:38) would hold off the hard-charging St. Pius duo of Margaret Crawford (5th in 19:40) and Rebecca Entrekin (6th in 19:45) for 4th place. Rounding out the Top 10 were Anna Gandolfo of Blessed Trinity (19:52), Erin Gant (20:01) and Sunshine Flamer (20:02) of Roswell, followed by Anna Barefield of Northview (20:03) in the #10 spot.
St. Pius easily won the Girls team title, scoring an impressive 57 points with a 20:13 team average. 2nd place Roswell got the better of Northview in 3rd, with Blessed Trinity taking 4th…..note that only 10 points separated these 3 schools.
Boys Varsity
Logan Poteet of Kell enroute to winning his 2nd major invite Image by Pinion Photography
In the Boys Varsity race, #1 seed Logan Poteet of Kell took an early lead at 400 meters, extending that to 20 meters by the 1 mile mark. A chase pack of Joey Ferrugia (St. Pius), Christopher Costa (Sequoyah), Conner Dalrymple (Union Grove), Drew Sands (Woodward), Spencer Geerlings (Landmark Christian) and Josh Salter (Northview) were packed together at 1,700 meters. Ferrugia would make the best effort at running down Poteet, but the gap never got closer than 15-20 meters, with Poteet winning in 16:00 to Ferrugia’s 16:08.
A great battle for 3rd ensued, with Costa (16:28) running strong late to best Geerlings (4th in 16:30) and Dalrymple (5th in 16:31). Salter would take the #6 spot in 16:37, holding off a great last 400 meters by Woodward’s Frank Crippen-Ginsburg (7th in 16:48). Cameron Lord of Chapel Hill (16:41) leveraged his home course advantage taking 8th, with Alex Murfee (16:48) of Woodward in the #9 spot. Jacob Robinson of Hiram – in 12th place with 400 meters to go -- closed hard to take the last Top 10 medal in 16:49.
In the Boys team race, Woodward – still a bit short of their full-strength line-up – won handily scoring 82 points with a 17:07 team average. Sequoyah, showing that somebody is doing something very well in Cherokee County, nabbed 2nd with 3 finishers in the Top 20. Just 4 points behind was Northview in 3rd, with a short-handed Roswell in 4th. Scottsboro (AL) and Union Grove rounded out the Top 6 teams. Other interesting developments in this race (and the final JV boys race) included season debuts for Andrew Anastasiades of St. Pius and Michael Deshay of Woodward, adding some nice color to the conversation of who’s now the AAA favorite come early November.
In the JV races, the day kicked off with Blessed Trinity showing off their depth, taking 7 of the top 8 spots in the Girls JV Purple race. Jillian Oreffice took the top spot cracking the 22 minute mark with a solid 21:55.
Next up was the Boys JV Purple, with Kamil Jones of Alexander taking the top spot in 17:39, holding off early challenges by Cole Lauff of Pope and a Roswell contingent of Austin Windsor, Davis Tardiff, and Dylan Gelobter. Roswell took the unofficial team title, scoring 33 points and taking 5 of the top 13 spots.
Sarah Foreman led Landmark MS to the team title Image by Pinion Photography
The penultimate race of the day was the Girls JV Black race, with Landmark Christian taking the top 3 spots and showing that they have some nice 2014 backup waiting in the wings for the varsity Kathryn Foreman/Nicole Fegans duo. Kathryn’s little sister Sarah took the title in 20:14, with teammates Mary Kellison Thorne and Lindsey Biggar rounding out the top 3. St. Pius would take the unofficial team title with 31 points.
Michael Deshay of Woodward won the Boys JV Black Race Image by Pinion Photography
To close out the racing, the above-mentioned Michael Deshay (18:11) of Woodward bested teammate Brennan Silliman (18:14) to take the top spot in the Boys JV Black contest. Woodward would take 5 of the top 7 spots to take the unofficial team title with 19 points…quite a display of depth. All in all, a great day of racing with 855 athletes testing their mettle on a beautiful Saturday morning. The awards ceremony was officially concluded at 10:59 AM!!
Complete Results and Meet Coverage
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2013 Atlanta Classic Varsity Boys
2013 Atlanta Classic Girls Varsity
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