Cross Country Update - Week 5

Athletics

9/14/2021

Our Wildcats excel once again!

Last Thursday, the Wildcats headed down the Fall Line Freeway with the varsity and middle schools teams for a midweek meet in middle Georgia. Statistically speaking, this is the largest meet of the season, with 40+ schools bringing 500 varsity runners and 600 middle school runners. Though the numbers are large, none of the 7A giants from suburbia found their way to Milledgeville, so the Wildcats expected to place high at this meet. 

The middle school boys kicked things off with 300+ boys at the start line. Despite their best efforts, none of them could keep up with 8th grader Lucas Johnson who ran away from the field winning his third race of the year and breaking the Westminster middle school 2 mile record in the process. Lucas crossed the finish line in 11:49 breaking the record of 11:55 set two years ago by Adam Lippe on this same course. Caleb Lambert also finished in the top 25 and the boys finished 8th out of 27 middle school teams.

The last time a Wildcat middle school girl ran under 15 minutes was 2015. This week, Molly Bramhall crossed the line in 14:43, finishing 7th out of 200+ runners. Emma Jordan and 5th grader, Kate Tracy, also finished in the top 25 leading the girls team to a 4th place finish.

The varsity boys were missing 3 of their top 5 runners due to illness, injury, and one competing in the middle school race. These are the occasions when depth is important and the Wildcat boys have plenty of depth. Led by seniors Brad Joiner (7th) and Eli Scott (13th) and junior, Brooks Johnson (21st), the team finished 3rd out of 30 schools despite running shorthanded.

The varsity girls do not have much depth, and only had five for this meet, but five is all you need and these girls always run hard. They positioned themselves up close to the leaders and held off a competitive field to finish 2nd as a team. Sophomore Abigail Knight led the way with a 10th place finish and all five girls finished in the top 26 out of a field of almost 200 runners.

The varsity teams head back down the Fall Line Freeway to Sandersville this week for the Brentwood Invitational, while the middle school teams run at Augusta Prep.