As a result of attrition, the Lady Greyhounds head into the cross country season with a handful of opportunities for younger runners to step up. The top spot on their roster, however, is not one of them.
Senior Addison Robinson enters her senior year having already garnered enough accolades to be mentioned as one of the top girls runners in school history alongside Erin Leonard and Laney Doster by virtue of what she has done in both the track and cross country disciplines.
Robinson’s career best time ranks only behind Leonard and Doster, and she also finished 12th in the state cross country meet last year.
“She’ll run D1 on the next level, she does all of the little things well. The door has opened up and now, when we go somewhere, people will ask how she is doing,” Jones County head coach Geoff Moore said. “She runs the life of a runner and puts the work in. The reason she is great is because she does all of the little things well.”
Robinson leads a group with holes to fill following the loss of three of last year’s top five runners, one being Camryn Wommack to graduation. But the cupboard is hardly empty for the Lady Hounds. Jones County’s No. 5 runner last season, Tanner Watts was an all-region selection, and Jordan Norman-Brown was not only around sixth among the JCHS runners last year, but was also an 800-meter finalists in track and field.
Two other younger runners are also among the ones expected to step up in Mary Barnwell, last year’s middle school league champion as well as Makenzie Snook.
“We can fill the spots, now they may not be 19:00 (in terms of time), but they will get better all year,” Moore said. “They will learn from Addison on living the life of runner, that’ll be good.”
JCHS is also banking on its young runners making strides during the season and taking advantage of staging the sectionals on their home course during a day that will determine region champions and state qualifiers.
“Having the sectional here for those girls, it’ll be huge since they’ve run it,” Moore said. “I’m confident that we’ll still have a good shot at region and to qualify for state.”
