CROSS COUNTRY
Make that three wins in a row for the Greyhounds boys cross country team.
The distance may have been different than some meets, but the result was similar last Thursday afternoon in Bleckley County in the invitational event held on a two-mile course.
Placing five runners in the top seven and comprising seven of the top 10 finishing positions, the Greyhounds ran to another win last Thursday, soaring to victory in the midst of fall-like temperatures.
“We’ve never been invited to that one before. (Bleckley County head coach) Shelly Cranford invites good programs, and we got invited this year,” said Jones County head coach Geoff Moore. “I’m glad we did because they went down there and did great.”
Austin Sullivan, Kyle Whipple and Luke Thornton led the charge, finishing third, fourth and fifth with times of 10:50.00, 10:52.00 and 10:52.75, just ahead of Joshua Barber’s time of 10:57.00 in sixth and Justus Boyd’s seventhplace run of 11:00.25. The dominance didn’t end there. Tyler Marshall and Grady Newby rounded out the top 10 with times of 11:05.28 and 11:05.67 with Gavin Robinson finishing 11th and Aaron England being 16th.
“We wanted to give them a weekend off and didn’t want to hammer them with a 5K. For us, this was a good competition,” Moore said. “They ran well, I was really happy with how they competed.”
The Lady Hounds finished second overall, but as Moore notes, that’s hardly something to hang one’s head about given that first-place Bleckley County is a perennial state contender and rated among its classification’s top teams.
Camryn Wommack’s fourthplace finish with a time of 12:48.00 led the Lady Hounds as Addison Robinson and Lilly Palmer followed that up in sixth and seventh with times of 13:27.00 and 13:28.00. Katlin Malone was ninth at 13:49.00 with Emily Patat’s 14:21.00 and Anna Hinson’s 14:27.00 bringing finishes of 15th and 17th in front of Addison Newby in 19th with a time of 14:31.39.
The Greyhounds also took the top spots for the best overall showing in the JV race as Andrew Marshall, Gunner Kent and Clay Lacy swept the top three finishing spots with Connor Monile in sixth, Ian Borsahole in eighth and Hunter Pittman in tenth.
Jones County will head to Bleckley County again this Thursday before wrapping up next week at GMC’s meet, scheduling that’ll come on the back end of fall break.
“I’ve learned from experience, between Halloween, fall break and the weather changing, you can easily lose focus,” Moore said. “Here recently, we’ve added a meet to try to keep them around and stay focused.”
