Cross Country action heated up last week as Starr's Mill ran against Sandy Creek and Woodward in a tri-meet last Tuesday before participating in the Carrollton Invitational on Saturday. At Sandy Creek the girls squad finished third but they were also missing four out of their top seven runners. Kelsi Matwick finished with a time of 24:31 and was followed by Sara Samms (25:01) and Nikki Loehrlein (25:11). The boys placed second in the meet with Les Page finishing first for the Panther's with a time of 18:06. Jay Touchstone finished with a time of 18:18 and Jason Fitzgerald followed with a time of 18:37.

The boys took second on a tiebreaker as their sixth place runner finished better than Sandy Creek's sixth place runner.

At the Carrollton Invitational on Saturday, the course was much tougher than the Panthers were used to. They are a young team, yet they still ran with intensity in the championship division. The girls were led by Jessica Helenius with a time of 24:54. Sara Samms finished shortly thereafter with a time of 25:09 and Kelsi Matwick followed her finishing with a time of 25:31. The boys were led by their top three runners, Les Page, Jay Touchstone and Jason Fitzgerald, who finished with times of 19:03, 19:22 and 19:44 respectively.

The East Coweta girl's and boy's cross country team started their season at the Indian Invitational, before competing in the Carrollton Invitational last Saturday. The Lady Indians took first in their grouping on the strength of junior Emily Bernocco's time of 21:46. It was her second win in as many weeks. She took first in the Newnan Festival Days race the previous weekend. Meghan Gould took second in the Indian Invitational, helping East Coweta to their first place finish with 32 points.

The top runner for the Indians was Robert Owens, who finished third, with a time of 18:11. Scott Thomas finished fifth with a time of 18:21. At Carrollton, the boys did not do as well as they could do. Coach David Ingram chalks this up to pushing some of the boys too hard last week and being without one of their top runners, Ryan Anderson. Robert Owens finished within the top third of all participants and Scott Thomas and Derek Campbell have been coming on strong of late.

The girls did extremely well at Carrollton, especially junior Emily Bernocco. For the first time ever, East Coweta had a top 5 finisher at Carrollton with Bernocco's run. She finished fourth out of 225 other racers.

Coach Ingram expects the team to be competitive this year and says it is quite possibly the best team he has ever had. "They are all extremely self disciplined, they have fun and it has just been a complete joy to coach these kids this year" said Ingram.

The discipline is obvious. Megan Gould ran at Carrollton with the flu and sophomore Blair Farmer ran on her own this summer, because she had never run cross country before. Farmer is now the second fastest on the girl's team

The Lady Indians also got a jolt out of Leah Vann rejoining the team this week as well. She ran with the team last year and was just going to swim this year but now she is back. This helps immensely because the girls were in need of someone to be the fifth finisher, with Vann returning that spot will be filled and the scoring can only get better for the Lady Indians.

East Coweta will run at Sandy Creek Saturday morning and Coach Ingram encourages all to come out and see what a big cross country meet is like.

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