4-AAAAAA Meet Summary (by Coach Jason Scott)
Khayvonn Benson wins the 4-AAAAAA Overall title
Varsity Girls
Mary Jane Assinzo of Marietta successfully defended her Region Championship by clocking a swift 18:11. Followed closely by Lady Hoyas Mattie Rountree, Kira Stanley and Marietta teammates Rebecca Dow and Kayla Dawson for about 2 miles, she left no doubt in the 3rd mile as to who is the Queen of this Region. Rountree and Stanley were able to pull away from Dow and Dawson tto finish 2-3 for the Lady Hoyas, both under 19:00. Dow and Dawson finished just over the 19:00 mark. While the team race was tied thru 4 runners, the Lady Hoyas then came in 6-7-10-11 to secure their 7th straight Region Title. Marietta finished a strong 2nd, with North Paulding and Kennesaw Mountain rounding out the State Qualifiers.
Varsity Boys
Marietta was calm cool and collected at the Start, wearing throw back uniforms and smiles of confidence. They showed why they are the #1 team in the State by running together and being the 1st 7 runners through 2 miles. Khayvon Benson led the Blue Devils to a successful title defense scoring a perfect 15, averaging 15:42 as a team. Spencer Borchelt of Harrison was able to run a very smart individual race to break up their 1-7 sweep, finishing 7th himself in 15:54. Now think about that!!! That means that Marietta's top 6 runners finished 1-2-3-4-5-6 and all finished under 15:54 and don't forget #7 who finished in 15:59. North Cobb HS ran good team race avg'g 16:48 to outscore Kennesaw Mtn by 19 who finished 3rd. Harrison rounds out the State Qualifiers scoring 107.
Jv Girls
North Paulding 8th grader, Alex Whiten (3rd in MS State Large School girls race) dominated the JV Girls race with the 3rd fastest time of the day, 18:50. The Lady Hoyas showed their depth winning comfortably with 8 girls in the top 11 runners.
JV Boys
The JV Boys race was led by Marietta's Tim O'Connell and was a precursor of what was to come later in the day. But even with the BlueDevils of Marietta scoring 1-2-3, a hard charging Hoya squad put thier #5 in front of Marietta's #4 and took the win 33-35.
Below are the performances entered for the meet that met the national silver standard.
18 National Elites. 52 Elites.