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Health & Fitness

Milton HS Boys Cross Country Finishes an Inspiring 10th Place at State Meet

Eagle runners surprise many with solid team finish

11/9/13-Carrollton, GA

 

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Clean shaven & Mohawk laden, the Eagles cross country boys team proved many wrong with their surprising state meet finish (10th-259 pts) to beat 22 schools at the 2013 GHSA State Cross Country Championships at Carrollton ES in Carrollton, GA.  Milton, predicted to be 6th in their region and not qualify for the state meet, proved today that a team effort with no finishers in the top-30, can produce a high team finish!

Overall, Brookwood (1st-105 pts) won another title after being 2nd a year ago.  The Lions of Peachtree Ridge (2nd-121 pts) held off a much improved Harrison squad (3rd-121 pts) with a 6th-runner tie-breaker. Collins Hill (4th-129 pts) shocked many as they were un-ranked and not predicted to finish in the top-10!

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For the Eagles of Milton, the season long goal of making it to state and finishing in the top-10 was realized as Milton put all of it’s scoring runners in the top-80 (224 runners finished the race) finishers to beat back Fulton County champions Roswell (18th-493 pts) and close the gap on region rivals Etowah (8th-239 pts) & Walton (9th-240 pts).

The surprise of the meet for the Eagles was the running of junior Preston Meade. The junior stayed in the top-40 the entire race and never waivered to finish within 3 seconds of his all-time PR (34th-17:26)! Meade ran with Milton’s consistent front runners sophomore Jack Bluth (35th-17:28) and fellow sophomore Clay Marshall (57th-17:40) to lead them to top-60 finishes.  With 3 finishers in the top-60, that put Milton online to finish in the top-10 and got a great race and finish from senior captain Kevin McGorrey (65th-17:45) and a solid effort from junior Connor Cole (77th-17:53) which concluded the Eagle scorers.  Milton also got big help from their 6th & 7th finishers today, which is important in a very large team and race field, coming from fellow sophomores Matt McGorrey (99th-18:17) and John Fravel (103rd-18:20) that beat back many #5 runners from schools that finished ahead of Milton!

The Eagles conclude a very successful season that has seen the last 4 trips to the state meet (2010-18th, 2011-8th, 2012-6th, 2013-10th) prove to be very successful for the Milton cross country program.

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