On one hand, an agenda of Saturday’s Carrollton Invitational was to get an in-person look at the course that’ll host November’s GHSA state cross country championships.
At the same time, a goal was also to see how the Greyhounds and Lady Greyhounds stack up against teams from across north Georgia and the Atlanta area.
That and more was accomplished on Saturday with both teams coming back to Gray with first-place trophies and top finishes. Both teams are scheduled to run in Thursday’s Hornet Invitational in Macon prior to the Greyhound Invitational on Sept. 21.
“Our main goal was to preview the course, and we did that and won the races we were in,” Greyhounds head coach Geoff Moore said.
Both teams were slotted in the races among teams in the AAAA through AAAAAA classifications, although their average times would have put them among the day’s championship race frontrunners, as well.
The Lady Greyhounds powered to a first-place finish with three runners in the race’s top nine. That charge was led by Lilly Palmer’s 20:10.77, bringing her home fifth ahead of Isabella Sanchez running a 20:37.71 for eighth and Addison Robinson one spot back with a time of 20:41.98. Camryn Wommack came in 16th by way of a 21:16.35 clip, followed by the 33rd-place of Tanner Watts with her 22:08.47 run giving JCHS five finishes in the race’s top 35.
“It was a great weekend. We had some sick kids and some bumps and bruises, and they fought through it,” Moore said. “I was proud of them, they competed really well.”
A trio of top-10 finishes led the Greyhounds as their average time was on pace to finish in the top three of the championship race. Luke Thornton was third with a run of 16:40.21 in front of Tyler Marshall in sixth with
in 14th with 17:16.99 and Shaun Williams giving JCHS five top-20 finishes with his time of 17:29.09.
