Ryan Peppenhorst

Check out the top 1000 boys historic performances from the big meet this weekend

Check out the top 1000 boys historic performances from the big meet this weekend

Check out the top 500 boys and girls historic performances from the Pickens Preview

Check out the top historic performances from the Asics Invitational this weekend

One thing is for certain after today's 6-AAAAAA Cross Country Championship, it was freezing (wasn't it 80 degrees a week ago?) and the 6A Girls title is up for grabs after South Forsyth took down #1 Northview. West Forsyth's Boys worked some magic of their own winning the region title over much higher ranked neighbor South...Lindsay Billings won the Overall but not without a challenge from Savannah Carnahan and the Boys individual race went to the wire between Jonathan Schwind and Ryan Peppenhorst..

With the Cross Country season set to take off next Saturday with many large invitationals including NEGA, Bob Blastow, Mercy Invite, Mid-State, Pickens Preview and the Peachtree Ridge-Walton Stage Races this begins a series of articles on the top teams in each class. These are subjective rankings (not computer generated); they take into account returning team rankings, team rankings in the 1600 and 3200 from outdoor track, and a school's "Improvement Rating."  Improvement Rating is a metric developed by researching the improvement in a team's final place at State from 2011-2013. Each category is given rank points and added up coming to a final point total. South Forsyth could be primed to have their best Boys squad in school history this Fall...        

The one, two punch of Junior champion Ryan Peppenhorst (16:43) and Senior runner up Jake Howlin (16:48) led #10 6A ranked South Forsyth Boys to the region 6 championship on a cool, perfect Saturday morning. The Lady Knights of Centennial solidified their ranking, taking the victory with 48 points, with a 20:01 average / 1-5 split of 1:09 & putting 4 runners in the top 15.  

Not as many schools ran up in the 6A race, but wasn't it VERY noticable how Wesleyan/Westminster chose as usual to not compete against each other once again?? South Forsyth took the Boys team race and Centennial's girls placed 1st as it seemed they, North Gwinnett, Lambert were going wfo while South Forsyth laid back a bit. 

North Hall dominated the Varsity Boys again, thrashing all comers (including 6A South Forsyth)  leaving no doubt, the Trojans are the cream of the crop of NE Georgia,  Jenna Gearing (soph) of White County, faced down a group of the most talented Girls she's ever toed the line against, in Cross Country/Track& Field and Gearing silenced all doubters, with a :20 second win on her home course at Unicio State Park a few miles north of Helen, Ga.