Can't believe some of the performances from the 1st weekend - quite a season is underway!
The Duel - Round 1
Region 7-AAAAA rivals and friends Nicky Akande of Collins Hill and Sydney Marshall of Chattahoochee toed the line for 2 miles on Saturday. It's a shame that they were in a race with boys because I don't know if people realized the intensity of what was taking place. They were toe-to-toe through the 1st mile in 5:25! Nicky pulled away with 1000m to go but both were under the existing meet record of 11:20 held by Kristin Heffelfinger of Walton. Both girls also ran faster than a host of past state champions including Drouin (11:29) and Winslow (11:34). Though those other times are from other courses, Boling Park would be comparable to River Green and with the slop of the course on Saturday, not sure how much faster it was than Gainesville though it would be by a bit but still 11:04-11:17! WOW!
Bret McDaniel, Riverwood, laid the smack down on a strong field at Early Bird in 17:48. She's big-time - what else can you say?
Destiny Jenkins, Athens Christian, made her GHSA debut and did like-wise to a state-caliber field at NEGA running 18:33 on a not-so-fast course.
On the Boys side, Kirubel Erassa of Grayson, hit the mile at 4:25 and never looked back en route to a sub-15 performance on the Clinton Farms course. He also beat a strong field including some of the state's top runners and showed why he is among the Honorable Mentions on the Super 25 National list.
Ty McCormack and Cody Barger of North Hall went 1-2 at NEGA against another great field and served notice in AAA that they will challenge Flowery Branch and other classifications for state supremacy.
The Brookwood boys were certainly impressive in platooning 2-4 runners in every stage for a strong sweep of the team titles to show that there's plenty of great running still going on in Snellville!
There were certainly others that you can add to the list but these are the performances that stood out to me.
Coach Hudson