Cross country teams three-peat as region champs, take second in GHSA sectionals
For the third year in a row, the best of the region’s cross country resides in Jones County. As part of Saturday’s GHSA Sectionals held at Greyhound Park, both the Greyhounds and Lady Greyhounds not only won region titles as a team, but also captured individual region titles by way of Luke Thornton and Addison Robinson. Thornton ran into history with his win, becoming the first boys’ region champion in program history.
“It used to be hard to even smell a region title, so you don’t want to get where you don’t enjoy these, because there are a lot of teams that don’t get one,” Jones County head coach Geoff Moore said. “It’s about being consistent, having a good middle school program, having kids buying in and having parents and a school system that supports your goals and what you want to do.”
But in the midst of that triumph, both teams are still seeking something a bit more heading to Saturday’s GHSA Class AAAA meet in Carrolton. That comes following last Saturday’s
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sectional in which both JCHS ran near the front, coming up one spot shy to first-place Pace Academy in both events. The boys’ finish was razor-thin with Pace Academy winning by just three points and an average time that was only five seconds better than that of the Greyhounds.
“They weren’t satisfied not winning the whole thing. They had beaten them twice earlier in the year. As a coach, you’d almost rather them have adversity now before next Saturday thinking that we have it made,” Moore said. “They were more disappointed than me, which is hard to understand even when you win a region title. They know that there are bigger fish to fry.”
Make no mistake. The Greyhounds know that in order to finish the state meet on the awards stand, it will likely have to beat their nemesis of this year in Pace Academy. It’s a challenge that JCHS, a team that lost one of its top five runners earlier in the season with Gavin Robinson’s injury, is looking forward to.
“It’ll be tough. If the other teams do what they are supposed to, we will have to beat either Starr’s Mill or Pace Academy to get on the awards stand, and they know that,” Moore said. “We’ll go into the weekend and shoot for what our goal was at the start of year to be on awards stand.”
To go with his region title, Thornton was sixth overall in the sectional with a time of 16:42.85. Tyler Marshall was fifth in the region and 11th overall with a 16:26.46 in front of Grady Newby’s run of 16th overall and 7th in the region as those top three JCHS finishes also earned all-region honors.
Shaun Williams, Andrew Marshall and Clay Lacy timed in 18th, 22nd, and 31st with times of 16:56.28, 17:01.29, and 17:.14.94.
The Lady Greyhounds dominated the region portion of sectionals, taking four of those top five finishing spots plus their top five runners also gaining all-region honors. They were led by Addison Robinson’s overall finish of 19:52.32 in the sectional, one spot in front of Isabella Sanchez’s 19:57.05, and Lilly Palmer’s eighth-overall time of 20:03.95, good for third in the region. Camryn Wommack was 15th overall and fifth in the region with a 21:05.09 to go with Tanner Watts’ 21:26.51 being 19th overall and 7th in the region.
All of that added up coming in second to a Pace Academy team that Moore says is nothing ashamed of coming up short to.
“The reality of it is, they were not going to beat them. They are going to either win the whole thing or finish second,” Moore said of Pace Academy. “That’s the best team that has ever been here to run. For us, second is about where we knew we’d be.”
Like their boys’ counterparts, the Lady Hounds go to the state meet with their goal from the start of the year in front of them.
“Our goal is to finish sixth or seventh with this team,” Moore said. “That’s still our goal and we’ve got great opportunity to do that Saturday.”
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