Cross Country Update - Week 1

Athletics

8/17/2022

Way to start the season, Wildcats!

In what has become the annual tradition, both the varsity and middle
school Wildcats opened the cross-country season at the Augusta Eagles
Invitational. This year had a very different feel as the meet was moved
from Wildwood Park to Crossbridge Baptist Church. The meet featured
18 varsity teams, including some of the CSRAs largest public schools.
The varsity boys return 5 of their top 7 from a team that has won the
past two GISA AAA state titles and will be favored to win a third straight
title this fall. The girls finished as last year’s state runner-up but lost 2
to graduation and 2 more to family moves and will start the season
without the required 5 person team.

Every running coach wants runners to improve from year to year, but
most expect to see PRs set as the season progresses, not at the
season’s first meet. The varsity boys didn’t see any reason to hold back
and 5 of the top 6 boys set big PRs. Freshman Lucas Johnson had the
biggest year over year improvement, dropping his PR by over 1 minute
from 18:19 to 17:15 which was good enough for 6 th overall. Adam Lippe,
Christian Vitacco, Brooks Johnson and James King also set PRs. The
team’s average 5K finish time of 18:18 is the fastest ever for a
Westminster team.

In the middle school race, the girls repeated as Augusta Eagles
Invitational champions in dominant fashion placing 6 in the top 10
including Emma Jordan (2 nd ), Molly Bramhall (4 th ), Kate Tracy (5 th ),
Kaylee Charles Finch (6 th ), Mahala Hubley (9 th ) and Zoey Bramhall (10 th ).
The middle school boys were running shorthanded with a couple of top
runners at a soccer tournament. The team, led by 8 th grader, Ethan
Dawkins, finished 4 th out of 9 schools.