What a week of racing it was beginning on Tuesday and ending Saturday in a quagmire of mud and slop the likes of which Georgia doesn't get to experience much of! Opinions ranged from I loved it, this is REAL CROSS COUNTRY! To I will never forget this, I hated it! I believe the coaches actually enjoyed it more than the runners, especially those that memories were jogged of their mudders when they were competing in HS and College.
Gwinnett County Meet
GATFXC.COM was at the much anticipated Gwinnett County Championships held at the River Green (Brown today) Parkway. Unbelievable day for racing. Skies were overcast before the start of the girls race and as the gun went off, the skies opened up in a deluge! Nothing like throwing a lake in the middle of the course to add a little bit to the mix. Definitely a race the kids will remember! Today was a day that will stand alone in terms of what it means for the rest of the season. The conditions were so tough that it will be hard to interpret what this means in the grand scheme of things. Brookwood stold the show Saturday led by 2nd place Tommy George (16:42) and Tyler Anyan who is re-gaining his form by convincingly winning the Boys title scoring only 34 points 7 guys in the top 20... very worthy of the #1 SE RANKING. Alec Klassen stood tall for Parkview clocking a 16:59 to pace the Panthers 2nd place position in the team standings. The Lady Broncs' stepped up big running as a strong pack and finished the race really well capturing the Girls title overtaking higher ranked North Gwinnett and Collins Hill. Caroline Kissell and Carly Egan led the way for Brookwood. It must be noted that Collins Hill not able to put their entire varsity on the line due to illness all week which will make things more interesting as the season progresses. Individually, congrats to Nicky Akande of Collins Hill (18:59) and Kirubel Erassa of Grayson (16:24) for churning through the course for the individual titles. Both took off at the Mile and never looked back (Well, I did capture Kirubel check his 6 a few times). Laura Serres of North Gwinnett placed 2nd in 19:47 to lead the Lady Dogs to a runnerup team place.
Cobb County Meet
Harrison Hoyas' won both team titles Saturday in a diluted Cobb County Championship Meet held at the Cobb County Corps Property. Top ranked teams Walton, Lassiter and Kell opted to compete at the UGA Invite as well as Wheeler.
On the Girls side the #4 ranked Harrison's Girls flat out dominated the race placing 6 runners in the top 8 positions. Ali Waterson led the team effort with a strong 2nd place finish behind Pope's Molly Schenck who took the individual crown. Schenck ran in tandem with Waterson thru most of the race before creating some separation and pulling away for the win in 19:37. Marietta's girls were a distant 2nd place in the team race scoring 60 points followed by Pope in 3rd.
Harrison's Boys made it a clean sweep for the Hoyas scoring 66 points holding off runnerup Pope and a strong A school in Mount Paran Christian with 85 points. Dan Ryan and Nat Estes led the Harrison squad to victory placing 6th and 7th respectively in 17:25 and 17:26. Zach Tupper of Pope won the boys individual title with a time of 16:46. Tupper broke away after the 2 mile mark after being in the lead pack with Darryn Hutchinson of Mount Paran, Henry Stevens-Carty of Allatoona and Marietta's Andrew Nelson.
UGA XC Invite by Bruce Greenwall
This meet held on a new Venue in Bishop at the UGA Equestrian Training Center may have captured the title of the "Mudder of the Year!" It was so muddy at the conclusion of the meet that a church's parking lot that was utilized for parking became an unrecognizable quagmire. Times at this meet meant nada. It was all about place like real Cross Country. GATFXC.COM was on site and captured much of the fun and mayhem.
Destiny Jenkins was on her game again testing out her skills in the muck and after Mile 1 pulled away never looking back at her competition in a winning effort of 19:52. The Lady Raiders of Walton packed it in for the Team title scoring 83 points and were led by Lena Hamvas' 6th place effort in 21:25. 4A's #2 ranked Lakeside-Evans was paced by Anna Bowles who did hang tough with Jenkins for a while and had a personal battle with Lambert's Allie Schaich (20:28) nearly the entire race until pulling away down the final stretch for a runnerup Individual finish in 20:17. Also packing it in for LS-Evans' runnerup team placing was Katie Townsend in 4th(20:31) and Anna's little sis Sarah in 21:14.
Wow! The Boys race was super close as only 1 point separated Chapel Hill and Walton for the Team title with the Panthers just coming out on top spurred by Individual Champ Wade Voyles who controlled the race from the start and continued to create some separation from the chase pack throughout the race in a very strong time of 17:00. Walton was led by the 8th place effort of Senior Andrew Daniel in 17:48. Ryan Knobbe of Centennial was 2nd in 17:12 followed by Oconee's Andrew Ely in 17:24 and defending A champ Colin Bishoff in 17:28.
Milton Invitational by Andy Carr
The 2nd Milton XC Invite lived up to it's billing as both varsity races were very exciting and had close team finishes.
Girls Varsity
After leading for more than 2 miles, Syndey Marshall of Chattahoochee was overtaken by Brett McDaniel of Riverwood who then went on to win the race in a new course record of 19:52 (1st women
under 20 minutes on the Milton course). Syndey followed in 20:08 with Allie Buchalski of John's Creek 3rd in 21:16. The top-3 all broke the existing HS course record of 21:20 set in 2008 in less than ideal (very muddy/slippery & hilly) conditions. The team race was close all the way to each team's #7 finisher with Milton edging Chattahoochee by 2 points, 46-48 with Riverwood 3rd with 89. John's Creek & Alpharetta tied at 92 with John's Creek getting the nod with their #6 runner beating Alpharetta's #6 runner by one spot!
Varsity Boys
The race ended up being a two-man affair with Austin Ulich of Chattahoochee & Tyler Tomy of Milton waging a spirited battle. Austin was able to pull away late in the race to also set a new course record (17:49) and edge Tyler Tomy (2nd-18:06). Dylan Moore of Marist was 3rd (18:29) with the top-3 all breaking the previous course record of 18:44 set in 2007 on a MUCH DRYER course. The team race came down to the wire again with Chattahoochee beating out Milton by 1 point (59-60)! Marist was not running at full strength and was a strong 3rd (66 pts) followed by Riverwood (4th-84 pts).
JV Races
Were completely dominated by Milton. The Milton JV girls duplicated their 1st place finish and team score from Roy Benson Marist Double-Dip the previous weekend with a score of 20 points (2,3,4,5,6) in a race with over 127 finishers. The Eagles of Milton also won the boy's JV race with 8 finishers in the top-10 to score 19 pts in a race that had 209 finishers!
Eagle Run
The Eagle Run was held at East Jackson HS and had nearly 20 schools in attendance Featuring most of the better programs northeast of the Athens area. Dawson County showed they are for real in AA on the Girls side defeating all comers including a few larger class schools. The Lady Tigers placed 4 girls in the top 9 and were led by Invidual Champ Maddie Dawson who clocked a very respectful 20:48 along with teamate Emily Beusse placing a strong 3rd in 21:10 on a moderately difficult course made slower by the rainy conditions. Brittany Aikens of Jackson County placed 2nd in a time of 20:55. Region 8AA rivals Jefferson and East Jackson were 2nd and 3rd respectively in the team standings.
Habersham Central took the Boys team title scoring 69 points placing 3 runners in the top 9 spots. Leading the Raiders out on the course was Seth Martin placing 5th clocking an 18:13 to edge out region 8AAAA rival Heritage by 14 points. However, the Patriots Aaron Worthy grabbed the Individual crown clocking a 17:46. Not far behind Worthy was Evan Alexander of Elbert County was runnerup in a time of 17:52. West Hall placed 3rd in the team race.
Chattanooga XC Festival
Nine Ga Schools crossewd the state line into Tennessee to compete in this meet with the St.Pius X winning the Girls team title led by Individual winner Kathleen LaPorte in 20:33. Placing 2nd was AAA school Heritage-Catoosa who was led by indy runnerup Stephanie Shipley in 21:06. The competition on the Boys side was pretty stiff but Dunwoody came away placing 4th in the team race led by Indy runnerup James Dwyer in 17:56. AAA was represented well by Carrollton also as they placed 6th led by Jacob Mobbs 4th place effort in 18:10.
