Georgia State Middle School Cross Country Championships 2013

Another enjoyable event drawing nearly 1300 runners was again successful on a revamped, more fan friendly course (with 4 large display clocks) which the fans and runners had to enjoy. Holy Innocents was the Boys (SS) team champs and won the Best (SS) Combined Program award. Decatur was a surprise winner of the Girls (SS) team trophy. Jonathan Jenkins of the Newroc Rockets and Anna Marion Block of Athens Academy were the Individial titleists. 

Another enjoyable event drawing nearly 1300 runners was again successful on a revamped, more fan friendly course (with 4 large display clocks) which the fans and runners had to enjoy... Marist signed up just in time to come down and whoop all the Large School teams. George Finch was cool as Fonzie raceday, executing his plan, winning the MS Boys Large School Individual title. Sydney Runyan of the Etowah Youth TC  turned it on seizing the (LS) Girls overall title posting a 12:28. 

 There will be some outstanding individuals fighting for Individual titles in the Championship races Saturday. Nearly all these athletes have been recognized as MS 'Runners of the Week' and/or as Honorable Mentions. Surely, we missed a few, and someone may get some motivation not being mentioned. 

  This Georgia MS State Championship thing continues to grow each season as 77 teams, 47 individuals and 1247 total athletes are slated to be compete this Saturday in Cochran. Ga.MileSplit has helped promote the meet dating back to 2009 and its now a monster with up to 3000 folks attending including athletes. I urge you to get a t-shirt early, or you could waiting in line for 1/2 hour after the Small School events. The feature races are the Large School Championship beginning at 10am and the Small School races at 11am. Comparing teams is extremely difficult as the MileSplit database doesn't calculate MS Team Rankings and 4 different distances have been contested including 2500m, 3000m, 3200m and the 2 Mile (which the new Bleckley Elementary course has been wheeled at or very close to 2 Miles) 29 full small school squads will duke it out and 21 large school teams (guestimate) Also, please don't take offense if your favorite team isn't mentioned, as evaluating MS teams is best left to dataholic in his rare spare time, lol. Thanks for understanding.

  Bleckley County and the City of Cochran are once again very proud to be hosting the State Middle School Cross Country Championships.  This will be the 8th edition of this event, which started back in 2006 with 10-15 teams and has grown every year since then, with 70+ teams/schools scheduled to participate this Saturday.  The event is held at Bleckley County Elementary School , which is where the Bleckley County cross country course is located.  With school support from Superintendent Charlotte Pipkin, Middle School Principal Trey Belflower, and Elementary School Prinicpal Janet DeLoach, along with the Bleckley County Board of Education, this event has truly turned into one that Bleckley County looks forward to hosting every year

Some fairly radical changes were made to the Bleckley County 2 Mile Elementary Course by Coach Cranford. What previous runners at the meet will find is a faster course that runs almost 7 times by the central location of all the fans. Nearly the entire 1st mile except for the Start was removed. And instead of taking that radical first left turn to run all the way back to the rear of the HS and baseball field, runners will keep going straight past the crowd parallel to the finish area running past the Elementary School and then doing a semi-U turn running back thru the finish line going backwards (the old layout) Coach Cranford reports  The course has changed drastically from previous years and hopefully to one that the runners will like and the spectators as well.  It is a way more spectator-friendly course that will allow people to see so much more of the race than in years past.  With that comes the responsibility of coaches, runners, and spectators to please be aware of their surroundings and to make sure that they stay off of the course while races are being run.  This event is first and foremost about the runners, and we want to make sure that every runner has a chance to do their best on this day.  There are places that spectators and coaches will not be allowed to be due to the configuration of the course, and we hope that people will respect that and follow the instructions given...Attached is a pdf one can click on for the layout. 

This week marks the final installment of the MS ROWs. All of the athletes honored this week will be competing to be Individual Champions. This week, Jonathan Jenkins from Newroc Rockets and Sophia West of Paideia are the 'chosen ones' Next week, each of the Individual Champs in the Large and Small School races will be the 'Middle School Runners of the Year' !               

The Georgia Middle School State Championship will be held this coming Saturday in Cochran at the Bleckley County Elementary School. There have been multiple requests sent to Meet Director Coach Shelley Cranford to enter your athlete/child as an Individual. Please refrain from doing this as there is a procedure on the meet page using MileSplit Online Entry to enter an athlete as an Individual. Its quick, easy and painless..I will post on the Discussion Board every day beginning Sunday night those who have successfully entered their athletes. Just follow the instructions in the article and you will get entered. Thanks.