By MICHAEL BOYLAN
Sports Editor

There were two fairly large cross country meets last weekend. They were both large in talent and large in size. Fayette County, Sandy Creek, and Landmark Christian all traveled to run in the Carrollton Invitational, while McIntosh and Starr's Mill ran in the Marist Double Dip Invitational.

Fayette County ran well and Coach David Phillips was pleased with the effort put forth by both the boys and the girls team. The boys, missing two of their top runners, placed 18 out of 32 teams in the championship division. The top runner was Tre Alverson who finished 21st out of the 268 runners in the group. Alverson was followed by Jon Riley (78), Adam Pekarske (109), Blake Alverson (135), and Josh Hartley (150).

The girls team ran in the champion division as well. The team was led by Jessica Tyre who finished 16th overall. Both Tyre and Alverson received medals for finishing in the top 25 of their divisions. Tyre was followed by Dana Teat (82), Clarinda Phillips (88), Taryn Kendall (96), and Rachel Swafford (111) The girls finished 15th out of 22 teams. The Tigers also fielded teams to run in the varsity and junior varsity races. The varsity boys finished 25 out of 36 teams.

Sandy Creek had their boys and girls squads running in the champion division at Carrollton on Saturday as well. The girls placed 18th and the boys placed 17th. The top five girls were Rae Lynch (22:03), Anya Traille (24:09), Hilary Vernon (24:40), Alexis McCoy (24:36), and Mandi Harrington (25:40). The top five boys were Lukas Fortunato (18:30.4), Brandon Goldstein (18:30.8), Pete Browning (18:33), Brian Wetmiller (19:00), and Chris Wilson (19:29).

Sandy Creek will host 45 schools on their campus on Saturday morning for their annual Sandy Creek Fall Classic. The course has been altered a bit from last year and is supposed to run a little faster. Sandy Creek will try to qualify both their boys and girls squad for the state meet in November. The races will begin on Saturday with the girls championship division at 9 a.m.

Also running at Carrollton on Saturday were the Landmark Christian War Eagles. The boys squad had the overall race winner in Kyle Rabbit and placed fourth overall as a team. Rabbit finished with a time of 15:58 and was followed by Clark Rivers who placed 12th overall with a time of 17:13. Rounding out the top seven for Landmark were Nathan Kosiba (18:06), Eric Sumner (18:21), Blake Fertita (18:23), Joseph Cawood (19:42), and Wes Glass-Hess (20:28). This was the first race of the year for Kosiba who is coming back from an injury. Coach Bill Thorn is encouraged by this performance and looks for good things from this year's team.

The Landmark girls squad qualified for the state meet a few weeks ago, but they look fairly far away from that squad now. The team lost several members to injury for possibly the rest of the season. They did not run in the championship division at Carrollton and don't know how they placed overall. Melissa Register placed 17th overall with a time of 22:14. She was followed by Claire Bradley (23:32), Kelly Sumner (18:21), Caroline Krigline (27:54), and Anna Schultz (29:11). Both teams will run at Sandy Creek this weekend.

The Starr's Mill cross country squads ran at the Marist Double Dip Invitational on Saturday and performed very well. The girls placed fourth overall while the boys placed fifth. Eva Massmann led the girls with a fourth place finish and a time of 20:38. Massmann was followed by Ashley Meredith (21:15), Katie Hughes (21:51), Cassie Shular (22:08), and Danielle Pick (23:07). The boys were led by Les Page who ran a 17:49. Page was followed by Jake Davis (18:13), Ricardo Ramos (18:24), Jason Fitzgerald (18:28), and Jay Touchstone (18:41).

Starr's Mill's performance is even more incredible because they ran and won last week at Sandy Creek. “I was very proud of our team,” said Coach Stephen Pruitt. “It is a good feeling to know that our athletes can run well even with having three meets within seven days.”

Back to the Top of the PageBack to the Sports Home Page