Please enjoy the carnage of the 6A Boys race. Subscribe and view videos of all the races.
Disclaimer: Article composed immediately after the conclusion of Saturday's races
I think I'll just let the results merge speak for itself in terms of the all-class rankings this year. Neither that merge nor my rankings are perfect and all of this is just for fun anyway. So I'm going to go a different route this year and count down my top ten moments from the state meet. I'm sure somebody who is very deserving of a mention will feel slighted by an omission, but I only have so much room in my brain for tidbits, and it's already a really small brain, to begin with. Ok, onto the list. And we will begin with number 11.
11. We had a state meet!
I know, 11 is not 10. But we can't have a state meet without a state meet course and meet director. So I'll start by giving a huge shout out to Coach Musselwhite, Sorrells, and everybody in Carrollton who did extra work this year to make the meet happen. In a year where none of us are certain of anything, we are incredibly lucky to have such an experienced crew putting on our state meet. They put guidelines in place to keep everybody as safe as possible while still putting on a meet for the kids. That's what really matters. The kids got to have a season and were able to finish that season with a state meet. Thank you to every meet director this year for going the extra mile (or 5) to put on the meets this year. It looked kind of bleak early on there as we saw meets canceled left and right. We had some meet directors who had to seriously fight for the opportunity to just host a meet. Some of them had some very strict oversight by people in charge of making decisions about sports in their school system that I'm sure made them really sweat it out. We saw a variety of methods taken to mitigate the spread at our meets. And while I'm sure some were better than others, the point is that every single meet director did what they could to make sure we had a season with the smallest possible chance of an outbreak occurring at our meets. Regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum of all of this, I think we can all agree that our meet directors are some real heroes this year. Heck, maybe this should be number one on my list.
10. Norcross gets Gwinnett back on the podium
It's been a long four years since a Gwinnett County team has gone home from the state meet with any hardware. Going to high school in Gwinnett in the early 2000s meant I was there near the peak of the "Gwinnett is Great" era. The old County meet seemed like a pre-state event. The podium in the highest classification was usually loaded with Gwinnett teams, though there would be the occasional team from outside of Gwinnett on there which was usually Walton. And it had been that way for a while before and it continued to be that way for a while after. But things change. It started with the girls in 2010 when Walton won and then continued in 2011 with Walton and Harrison going 1-2 and Milton taking 4th. All of a sudden Gwinnett was only getting one podium spot instead of 3-4 of them. The boys held on a little bit longer, but in 2014 only had half of the podium spots. Then, in 2017 it happened. No Gwinnett teams on the podium on either side and that continued to be the case as Cobb, Forsyth, and Fulton took over for 4 years. Norcross ended that drought with an impressive showing. But it wasn't just that they got back on the podium, they competed for the state title. There was a time when I thought they might have the lead, though I would have to go to the video and do some really close counting to see for sure. But what stood out to me this year was how consistent Norcross was all season long. They started the year at Bob Blastow in 3rd behind Marietta and Harrison. Then a solid win at Lamar Murphy. Then a win at Gwinnett County, a 5th at Asics and Coach Wood. I know they lost in the region meet, but I'm not convinced they were going all out. So they showed up ready to roll at state with no real slip-ups along the way. Just a very impressive season by a group of guys trying to get Gwinnett XC back on the map. Kudos to coach Brooks over at Norcross.
Simone Rojas from 6A Evans HS
9. The carnage that was the 6A races
Carrollton is a course that can devour your soul if you go out too fast. But when you mix hot weather with that course, it can turn into a serious death march. I remember somebody telling me about Elizabeth Funderburk asking people in 2016 if she won the race while she was still finishing because she didn't even know where she was. That's what can happen when you combine heat and hills in Carrollton. Enter, 6A boys. The team Rankings coming into the meet were Carrollton, Alexander, North Atlanta, Pope. Now go look at the results. The podium teams were ranked 7th, 6th, 2nd, 5th coming into the race. Cambridge, who won, averaged 17:51. There are at least 3 teams in that race who could have averaged under 17:30 on that day. But heat and hills lead to some crazy things at Carrollton. I also just think that we had a bunch of very evenly matched teams. When you've got 7 or so teams with very little to separate themselves, rankings don't mean much. So what happened? Carrollton boys took it out hard and were the clear leaders early. Several teams tried to go with them and faded badly. The teams who were sitting back just trying to get on the podium ended up winning the race. Kudos to Cambridge for having such a tight 1-5 spread of 6 seconds. But skip ahead to about 5:30 minutes into the video. The boys are well past the two-mile mark and even the leaders look like they're on their cool down after a hard workout. Contrast that to the first time they ran by that spot at the 30 second mark in the video. Heat, hills, Carnage. In the girls' race, we saw basically the same thing from everybody except Makena Gates. It looks like 7 girls were forced to drop out of the race. The biggest casualty appears to be Riverwood's 4th runner as a DNF which likely cost them a trophy. Unfortunately, that can happen at Carrollton. But credit Pope for running a patient enough race that they were able to just slowly move up. If you watch the finish line video, you'll see some very tired girls finishing that race. It wasn't quite as dramatic of a difference as the boys, but the final rankings were definitely not the same as the final results. Pope held their ranking at 1. But Allatoona got 2nd despite being ranked 5th and Lakeside Dekalb snagged the final trophy despite being ranked 9th coming in. That's why you run the race. Heat, Hills, Carnage.
Mary Brady led the Golden Lions to the promised land Saturday morning.
8. Double drama in 5A
In terms of combined boys and girl's total points separating the winner and runner up, this was the closest classification of the weekend. The St. Pius boys won by 2 points and the girls won by 7 in two incredibly close races that both had their fair share of drama. On the girls' side, we saw the two top teams all class duke it out in what was already expected to be the closest girls' race of the weekend. We saw a classic battle that yet again put to the test which is more important to have: front runners or depth. Early on it was a dead heat. Mary Brady, undefeated against all Georgia runners this year, was in front. But BT was sitting right behind the SPX girls at spots 1-4 for most of the first loop and their 5 had a gap on SPX 5. As the race continued Brady pulled away and Hannah Schemmel took over in 2nd for SPX while their 3-4 were gaining on BT 2. But their 5 was going backward while BT 3-4-5 all ran together just outside the top 10 securing some low points that could be the difference. In the end, SPX 5 had enough left to have a monster kick down the final hill and secure the win.
Decatur vs St. Pius X boys was a glorious spectacle for a cross country fan.
Shelby Green is the new 'queen' of A Public girls XC.
7. Armuchee Girls win their first state title, Rural Georgia runners shine
Winning the first one is always very special. It's also not easy to beat the defending champions in the process. With Gracie O'Neal (3-time 1A public champion) graduated, it was time for somebody else to take over as the top girl. Enter Shelby Green. Finally, Armuchee doesn't have to deal with private school teams and look at what happens, their first-ever state title. Green led wire to wire helping her team get that top podium spot. Congrats to those girls for taking care of business. This also seems like a good time to mention the fact that Metro Atlanta runners are not quite as dominant as they once were. There were kids from all over the state who had great seasons and big days at Carrollton. We've spent so many years talking about how we have too many classifications and too many state champions. And that when we water down the field it will make it too easy for our kids to win so they won't reach their potential. Apparently, we were wrong as this is the deepest year I've ever seen in the all-class rankings. But, more importantly, I think we are seeing more and more individuals from rural Georgia schools shine. You can look down on the 1A public race if you want, but Shelby Green almost broke 20 at Carrollton after the 2A kids tore up the course during the rain. That's legit and she deserves tons of credit for that performance, one that would likely land her on the ATC all-metro team if she was in the right county. But she wasn't alone. I spoke with former Marist coach Eric Heintz at the meet and he talked about how much better XC is getting outside of the metro area. In 2A boys we had 4/10 of the top ten from outside metro Atlanta. In 3A boys it was 7/10, 4A boys were 8/10, 5A boys were 4/10, and 6A boys were 7/10 with South Effingham and Richmond hill both on the podium. 2A girls were 5/10, 3A girls 8/10, 4A girls 6/10, 5A girls 4/10, and 6A girls 1/10. And every single one of those kids can compete with metro area kids too. The state is getting better at this sport outside of the metro area and I love it!
Lovett's boys left it all out on the course upsetting Pace Academy.
6. Lovett Boys with a monster upset
This one was something I kept an eye on as a possibility, but even I wasn't sure that they had what it took to get it done. Lovett was very quiet this season. Except for Bob Blastow and Coach Wood, they ran very small meets and were hard to read. I started watching them after their quad-meet with Lambert, Walton, and Brookwood was a good showing. Then they impressed again at Mills 102 with a pretty good win and verified my ranking of them by placing 8th at Coach Wood, beating a Pace team that had been ranked #1 all class at the time. But we all knew Pace wasn't full strength and that when you plug their guy back in, they're ahead of Lovett. But still, it was interesting enough to pay attention to as an upset alert. Cue 12:25 pm on Saturday as the rain, which had been teasing us all morning, finally starts to fall pretty hard. The wild card is always the weather. But who was it going to help more? The gun goes off and there are 3 Lovett guys out hard. They came to play. Pace bides their time the first 1k and then gets to work. Edward Blaha takes control and opens up a gap while George Blaha settles in at 3rd behind Joe Urbanowicz. Lovett is one place behind pace at all 5 scorers. This could get interesting. Not much changes the rest of the first loop as some individuals move here and there but the team score remains the same. Then Lovett 5 starts to fade at the two-mile. They look to be in trouble as their 2-4 appear to be hanging on for dear life. As they head to the woods after the playground one last time, the knights appear to maybe be too good for the Lions. The one glimmer of hope is that Lovett's 2 was ahead of pace 2. But something changed in the woods. All of a sudden Lovett was also ahead at 3 as well and their 5 was rebounding from the harder parts of the course. This thing wasn't over. They come through the finish going 1-4 and 2-3. That's a wash. But Lovett is ahead by 2 places at 3rd man, that could be the difference. Pace 3-4 finish close behind with one individual displacing them by one second. Lovett 4 can't quite beat pace 4. It's a one-point Lovett lead as Pace 5 comes down the final hill. But so does Lovett 5 with a monster kick to move past Pace 5. Instead of Pace tying it, a race they would have won on a 6th man tiebreaker, Lovett 5 comes up big to save the day as the Lions win their first boys XC title since 2004.
Coach Jack Coleman of Marietta HS
5. Jack Coleman is a Legend as Marietta sweeps 7A
There are many, many deserving coaches who are in the Georgia coaches hall of fame. Some of them have won more state titles than Coach Coleman at Marietta ever will as they coach in lower classifications where it's not quite as dense and there are more opportunities. But what he has done with Marietta over the last decade is something that very few, if any, coaches have ever done. I remember him telling me about them winning their first state title in 2014. He had so many near misses over the years, including the year before when he told his boys after the race they just "threw away a state title." But in 2014 they seemed unbeatable in Georgia, and with those who graduated from those near misses over the years all sending in motivating words to the 2014 team, they finally delivered for the best coach in the state. They followed it up with another win in 2015 and a trip to Nike nationals where they finished 14th, the best finish ever by a Georgia boys team. In 2017 Coach Coleman got the girls team their first win too and followed it up with another one in 2018. The Marietta girls had some close calls at Nike regionals, finishing only 12 points out of qualifying for nationals in 2017. And now, Coach Coleman delivered a rare double sweep in the highest classification. The last time it happened was 2007 with Collins Hill (coached by another legend, Coach Hudson) and before that 1989 with Brookwood and Walton in 1981. The 7A boys race is always one giant cluster the first time you see them so there's no point in even trying to figure out who was where. Marietta had 3 guys plenty far up and their 4-5 were in the peloton. A fine position to be in. By the halfway point they still had 3 in the top 15. But other teams were starting to look pretty good. Harrison had Sully up and guys sprinkled through. Same for Norcross. Meanwhile, Denmark's 2-5 were moving as a unit but you wondered if they started too late as they were with Marietta's 4-5. And that was the question for Marietta, did their 4-5 do enough to get the job done for them this year? Turns out it was as they both turned in their best race of the season pretty much matching all of their competitors. As now the girls. Marietta was winning at the mile, clearly getting a good start and following the boy's lead of having 3 runners near the front. By the halfway mark Marietta had four up in or near the top 10 while Hillgrove only had 2. But Hillgrove wasn't far back and their 5 actually might have looked a little better. By the two-mile it looked like Hillgrove had taken over the lead, remembering what they did last year to come from behind to win it. But it was still too close to call. In the end, Hillgrove was able to put two in front of Marietta 1, which meant all they had to do was match them. But Marietta fought tough and put four in front of Hillgrove 3 and had a slightly better 5, which ended up being enough to get it done. Well done Marietta and Coach Coleman.
Luke Gaddis led the War Eagles to a big upset over Marist.
4. Chestatee boys knock off Marist
Like what Coach Christie posted on the message board, anything that brings 'Dataholic' back is a big deal. We miss him! A public school beating Marist for a state title hasn't happened since Flowery Branch in 2011. And Chestatee did it with one of the fastest team averages of the weekend. They flew a little under the radar as their full team didn't run any huge invitationals, but it was obvious they were good and they showed up to Carrollton ready to attack those hills. This race did not go the way I expected it to go. On the one hand, you feel for Luke Gaddis who probably went in very confident as the favorite, only to lose to Davis Potts who ran a phenomenal race. On the other hand, you can't feel too bad for a senior leading his team to their first-ever state title. The race didn't quite start the way I expected. I expected Potts vs. Gaddis, but Seth White was right there with them. Then Marist was doing what I thought they would, which was sit back and wait for the second loop. But Chestatee was sitting even further back biding their time early. By the halfway point it was down to Potts vs Gaddis as Marist 1-2 were closing on White and looked poised to start the Marist low scoring. But then something caught my eye. Chestatee's 2-3 were right on Marist's 1-2. Interesting... Marist 3 wasn't too far back, but then after him was Chestatee 4. And then 5. And then 6! Chestatee had six in front of Marist 4 at the halfway point. What was going on? By the time they came around after the two-mile, it was obvious Chestatee was there to stay. And it got even better. When it was all said and done they went 2-3-4-6-10 scoring a very low 25 points for a huge win. What I noticed most from watching this race is that those Chestatee boys just ran with so much fire and intensity. When you see guys whose form is all over the place and they're still passing people, you know they're running with pure heart. Congratulations to you Chestatee. Anybody who overlooks your performance last weekend is missing out.
Makena Gates and Mary Brady only hooked up at Asics this season.
3. Mary Brady versus Makena Gates for ROY
On the one hand, it's good that Pius only moved up to 5A instead of 6A as we thought. It meant two classic races in 5A. On the other hand, it's a shame they did as it took away what could have been a fantastic race between the two best girl runners in Georgia. Carmel Yonas could certainly make her case, but I think it comes down to these two. It'll be interesting to see which one wins the All-Metro and Gatorade runner of the year awards. Both runners have a season-best of 17:50. They only faced off once this year, with Brady winning at Asics 17:52 to 18:00. Gates won 6A in 18:43 while Brady won 5A in 18:47, the top two times of the meet, and both went wire to wire to take the win. What's interesting about these two ladies is that they took very different journeys to reach this point. Both girls were experienced runners coming into high school as they did multiple years of middle school running. Gates won state and ATC runner of the year as a freshman, also finishing 13th at Footlocker south at 17:46. She also won as a sophomore going 17:36 at Footlocker south for an agonizing 11th. She followed that up with PRs of 10:54 and 5:11 on the track. While she came up a little short at state last year, she still ran 18:49 (losing to an amazing 18:27 time from Gholar) and was Georgia's top girl at footlocker running 17:52. She got back on top again this year though, winning 3/4 state titles in her time. She has been a constant for Georgia XC at the front of races and it will be weird not seeing her there next year. Brady on the other hand should be an inspiration to any girl who doesn't start out blazing fast right away as a freshman. She was 37th at state as a freshman going 21:45 and finished the year with a PR of "only" 20:16. As a sophomore, she was able to dip under 19 and place 6th at state. Then that spring she started really getting after it with her 5:08 for 5th at the state track meet. She followed it up with a 17:59 in XC, but only placed 7th at state. She has shown a nice steady progression and just capped off a stellar senior XC season where she wouldn't let any Georgia girls in front of her. This will be interesting to see who wins the award.
Zack Truitt is 'Singing in the Rain'
2. A senior boys class for the ages
Of the many ways that this pandemic has negatively affected our lives, missing out on the times the boys were getting ready to put up last spring is a tough pill to swallow. The combo of last year's senior boys with this year's senior boys was surely going to produce some amazing times. Alas, it was not meant to be. It's also a shame that we don't have Footlocker or Nike to look forward to. This boys class could have done something special and maybe could have had 5 or more boys qualify for nationals. Anybody who breaks 16:20 on this state meet course is on an elite level. Sub 16:10 is even better, and sub 16:00 is an almost guaranteed national qualifier. We had 8 boys run 16:20 or faster this weekend. Justin Wachtel ran 15:51, the 4th fastest time on this course layout, after going 15:00 this year, sub 15:00 last year, and 4th at Footlocker south to qualify for nationals as a junior. Zack Truitt went 16:05, delivering to us four years of top-level running after breaking the state record in the 3200m in middle school. Sully Shelton ran 16:07 at state after running 15:13 this fall and 15:03 last year to qualify for Nike nationals. Andrew Jones ran 16:11 after running 14:58 this fall and almost breaking 9:00 last spring in a time trial. Hayden Marshall ran 16:16 despite "only" going 15:45 this fall, so a monster day for him when it all counted. Davis Potts got some redemption after falling short a couple of times to win his state title at 16:16. Will Bray saved his best for last too going 16:20 to cap off a great senior year. And I want to include Luke Gaddis too who fell short of the 16:20, but one week this year won the mountain invite over Potts on Tuesday and followed it up with a 15:20 at Asics 4 days later. Junior and Sophomore boys, the bar has been set by these fantastic seniors. Which leads us to...
Miller crests the horseshoe hill with a huge lead at the 1k mark.
1. Kamari Miller is a BEAST
I knew we were in for something special when I went from the top of the hill at the start to the top of the hill at the 1k waiting for the 7A boys runners to round the softball field and come into view. I saw Kamari come around the corner first, which I expected. And then I waited. And waited. And waited. It was about 10 seconds before I saw the next runner, who let's remember qualified for Nike Nationals last year and still had a heck of a race and a season. But Kamari is just on another level, and possibly just had the best XC season we've ever seen. He put all of us on notice when he dropped a 14:07 3 mile at Bob Blastow, absolutely destroying what we all thought was a very strong field. He followed it up with a low key win at Cobb, but then made his first assault on the Carrollton course record at Ortho running 15:41, the second-fastest time ever on this layout. Another low key win followed by the only race where he had any hint of losing this year, his 14:55 at Asics. It says quite a bit about your season when your "worst" race is a one where you lead start to finish and beat a field that had the most sub 15:00 and sub 16:00 performances of the year. He took care of business again with his 14:51 Pr at Coach Wood. I assume he was on cruise control for that 15:06 at region saving it all for the big dance. David Harris, the announcer who gets my final shout out as he always does an awesome job keeping us all informed during the races, got the hype started when he announced that Kamari had just gone through the mile in the fastest time ever on this layout - 4:39. The hype continued when he cruised through the 2-mile in 9:40 and came roaring down the final hill in a new course record time of 15:29. For those of you out there who aren't history buffs, there have been several different versions of the Carrollton Course. But there have been 3 main versions as all other versions were only slight variations. It's been generally accepted that the current version is the hardest version. But version 1, which was the layout from 1994-2002 was also very difficult and pretty close to the current version in terms of overall difficulty. From 2003-2011 we got version 2, a "fast" version of Carrollton and we started seeing some PR's at the state meet when we got good weather. Then we were introduced to separation slope and version 3.
And with that knowledge, I'll finish this thing up with some rankings. Here are my top 5 performances ever at Carrollton:
Girma Mecheso - 15:01, version 2, 2006
Kamari Miller - 15:29, version 3, 2020
Joe Thorne - 15:30, version 1, 2000
Graham Blanks - 15:33, version 3, 2019
Josh Crowfoot - 15:34, version 1, 1995