State Meet Hub

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2A Girls State Meet Recap

2A Girls was supposed to be a bit of a Savannah Arts Academy, and it lived up to the billing. With Margaret Wade taking home the individual title, and the team as a whole packing their Top 5 into the Top 20, there just wasn't any realistic way around them. But looking past those front runners, we had an exciting race develop between Athens Academy and Landmark for 2nd, and a Fellowship Christian/Union County showdown for the final podium spot.

Girls lead pack early. All Photos by Alex Brust

Athens Academy packed it up front early

The Chase pack as they headed towards the playground

Athens Academy took the big shot early, putting their whole Top 5 into the Top 15 before they ever made it to the course's central hill. Whether this was them taking their shot at Savannah Arts, or just trying to create some separation from Landmark, we won't ever know, but that early race positioning would turn out to be critical as, more than in any other race on Saturday, we saw some big gaps open up early between competing groups. If you found yourself on the wrong side of one of those groupings early, Carrollton is an especially hard course to fight through 'No Man's Land.'

But fight they did. Up Separation Slope the first time, Savannah Arts was already running 1/4/5/8, controlling the pace early, and by this point we saw Landmark moving into position with their 3/4/5 packed right behind Savannah Art's 5th, Camille Arango. Savannah Arts took care of business down the stretch with Lyric Olson and Ava Coffey placing 5th and 6th to give them too much of a head start on the field coupled with Wade's Win.

Margaret Wade took home the win

Shari Brown put up a good fight in 2nd place

Headed towards the 2 mile mark, we had our first glimpse of drama as Shari Brown, from Landmark, who had been a clear 2nd place up until that point, seemed to be fading just a bit back to the pair of Athens Academy runners, Maya Davis and Sarah Harrison, who had been waiting in the wings. Going behind the school, there was a bit of a question about who would come out in front. But credit to Maya Davis who seemed to sense the Athens pair closing and picked her pace back up, getting a second wind and finding a way to hold off the charging teammates over the final mile.

Maya Davis led Athens Academy with a 3rd place finish

Sarah Harrison was 4th

With the gaps being where they were, the team battle for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd looked mostly settled by Separation Slope the last time up. Which leaves the battle for 4th. Fellowship Christian managed to nudge past Union County High School by a razor-thin 9 points. Despite not having any individual in the Top 15, Fellowship Christian relied on the strength of their pack to get them onto the podium, which seemed to be a recurring theme of the day. If you want to win, you need a frontrunner. If you want to get on the podium, you need a 3/4/5 who can hunt well together. All the way from 7A, here to 2A, we saw similar storylines play out.