Saturday’s OrthoWest Invitational carried its own degree of prestige, attracting some of the state’s top cross country teams. But of the races held there during the season, it’s not the biggest one. That event, by the way, is the GHSA state championship meet the weekend of Nov. 7-8.
It’s for that reason that the Greyhounds come away from Saturday’s fifth-place finish in the race’s championship meet knowing that, while the showing was good, they also have more to put forward later in the season when it will count the most.
“Now, they think nobody will give this to us. They know what they have to do, and they know that they made some mistakes during the race,” Jones County head coach Geoff Moore said. “We have plenty of time. Saturday was not the day you want to win the whole thing; that’s in November.”
Jones County’s average time of 1:25.00.68 was second to only Westminster of the teams in the AAAA classification, led by Luke Thornton’s 15th-place 16:30.87 and Shaun Williams’ 21st-place run of 16:45.01 Timing in within the top-50 of the highly competitive field were Grady Newby and Gavin Robinson in 42nd and 50th with times of 17:10.34 and 17:16.96.
Not far behind were Tyler Marshall’s 17:17.50 in 51st and Clay Lacy taking 62nd with a run of 17:32.78.
Both the Greyhounds and Lady Greyhounds will take this weekend off for course cleanup before hosting the Rancher’s Greyhound Invitational on Sept. 20.
“They didn’t have a great race, but they know what they are capable of when it all comes together,” Moore said. “In this sport, you don’t get timeouts. It’s 17 minutes, and everybody brings it. If you haven’t got it, it’s too late.”
A team still mostly new to the high school level of competition, the Lady Greyhounds took on the challenge of Carrollton’s course head-on, placing eighth out of 29 teams in the 4A-6A race.
Addison Robinson ran to a 21st-place finish in the championship race at 20:27.14. In the 4A-6A race, two Lady Hounds finished in the top 26 with Mary Barnwell surging to a 15th-place showing at 22:03.91 and Tanner Watts taking 26th on a time of 22:30.76. Also bolstering the showing for the Lady Greyhounds were Makenzie Snook’s 23:36.62 in 62nd place and Catelen Myers being 83rd overall at 24:08.21 “We had eight girls that had never run there. It’s such a great experience,” Moore said. “The course is hilly, it’s so different than anything they run on, and they did really well for their first time on it. They’ll be ok when it comes time for region and sectionals.”
