Cross Country Update - Week 5

Athletics

9/20/2022

Our Wildcats continue to excel!

One of the best parts of cross country is the chance to run someplace new. There are some meets that we attend year after year, but each fall, we try to find a couple of places that offer a new course and new teams we have never competed against. This year, we found the Dixie Head Waters Invitational. From the emails from the race director describing demolished parking lots to warnings of goat manure, we have been looking forward to this meet for weeks. And so, the Wildcats left before dawn on Saturday for Donalds, SC, population 348. With 12 cross country teams rolling into town, the population of Donalds doubled on Saturday.

The setting was all we had expected. We parked at the Rustic Roads restaurant on Main Street, currently closed and for sale if anyone is interested, carried our gear just behind the Donalds Church of God and set up in a goat pasture. Though it was a tough course, 6 of 12 Wildcat runners set PRs. The boys were led by Junior, Adam Lippe, whose 16:30 was a PR and also good enough for 2nd overall. Five others finished in the top 20. The team finished second to J L Mann, a large school from Greenville, who brought more than 50 boys to compete. Molly Bramhall finished 8th in the girls’ race. Her 23:03 was nearly 30 seconds lower than her previous PR. The performance of the week goes to Adam as well as William Westmoreland who reduced his PR by nearly 1 minute to 20:55.

The middle school teams competed on Thursday in the Greenbrier meet at Wildwood Park. The girls, competing without one of their top 5 runners due to injury, finished second to a strong Evans team. Led by Emma Jordan (5th), the girls placed 5 runners in the top 15. The boys’ team, led by Caleb Lambert (3rd) and Charlie Campbell (5th), finished fourth.

The middle school stays local next week, competing in a meet hosted by EDS. The varsity travels to Cartersville, GA, to the Wingfoot Cross Country Classic, one of the nation’s premier meets spanning two days and including over 4000 runners.