The intent of the Greyhounds’ cross country schedule is anything but murky.
With a boys team heavy on experience, the goal is to take on a stern list of competition, taking steps to ensure that — when the time comes later in the year where the race results matter the most — that the JCHS runners will be prepared the meet the moment, even if things are not always ideal.
The Greyhounds endured as such at Saturday’s Bob Blastow Invitational in Whitesburg. With muddy conditions slowing the pace, they finished second overall in a field saturated by teams from the Atlanta area. Jones County’s average time of 16:31 was eight seconds behind first-place West Forsyth, regarded as the state’s top team regardless of classification while also being better than top-end teams in their own classification such as Midtown, Cambridge, Pace Academy, and Starr’s Mill in addition to AAA title favorite Oconee County.
“This thing was loaded with competition,” Jones County head cross country coach Geoff Moore said.
Jones County’s top-five runners each timed in below the 16:44 mark with three finishing in the race’s top 30. Luke Thornton’s 16:14.38 led the Greyhounds as he finished 17th in front of Gavin Robinson’s run of 16:20.12 in 21st. Running to a 26th-place finish on a time of 16:20.12 was Shaun Williams with finishes of 36th and 37th from Clay Lacy and Grady Newby by way of times of 16:42.85 and 16:43.98.
Lacy’s time was a personal best.
“Sometimes, you have to win ugly, especially when you have kids sick and things are muddy and slow,” Moore said. “We didn’t have our best race, but we ran well. I was really happy.”
Perhaps more important than any average time set on Saturday? The split time among those top runners being smaller than most other teams, and the result was a second-place finish.
“Our 1-5 split was 29 seconds. We didn’t have a great average, but if you can have all of your kids within 30 seconds, even if you don’t run great, you’ll have a lot of points,” Moore said. “The key was our 29-second gap. All those other teams were well over a minute.
“Our fifth and sixth guys, they beat Pace and Starr’s Mill and Oconee County’s fifth guy. Your numbers go up if you can do that, the strength was our depth.”
The Lady Hounds finished ninth overall, bringing home the second-best finish in the meet for a school outside the metro Atlanta area. Despite battling cramps, Addison Robinson blazed the trail for Jones County, finishing 13th at 19:56.83. Two others from JCHS finished in the top-50 as Tanner Watts’ 21:04.45 earned a finish of 36th, and Mary Barnwell was 44th on a run of 21:24.94. Makenzie Snook was 86th overall at 22:34.65 and Catelen Myers came home 118th at 23:08.48, giving a Lady Hounds team with four freshmen five finishes below 23:10 overall.
“To go there with four freshmen and finish ninth, I’m happy with it. We had girls there that had never run a 5K before. They’ll be ok, we’ll get better every week,” Moore said. “I’m proud of them for that being their first race, you never know what you’ll get with a new bunch. We’ve got some new kids, but they’ll be ok.”
Both teams will run again Sept. 6 in the OrthoWest Invitational in Carrollton, the same course that’ll host the state meet on Nov. 7.
