Milton HS Cross Country Sweeps Team Titles at NIKE/Coach Wood Invitational

Sophomores Lead Eagles as Milton Records Four Team Wins

Gainesville College, Oakwood, GA

10/19/13

Varsity Girls

The Lady Eagles put three runners in the top-10 to score the meet win (1st-77 pts) over 24 scoring schools. The Lions of Lovett were runner-ups (2nd-140 pts) followed by North Paulding (3rd-173 pts).  Sophomore Riley Burr led the Lady Eagle effort as her 19:24 over the Gainesville College course which was good enough for 2nd place and Burr is now the 4th-fastest performer in school history!  Burr ran in the lead pack the entire way with many times leading the race. One last-ditch effort fell just 2 seconds short of the race win but her momentum propelled Milton to the easy team victory. Following Burr’s record-setting effort, junior Juanita Pardo (9th-20:30) and senior co-captain Abbey Jordan (10th-20:30) made it three on the awards stage!  Junior Amy Ruiz continued her solid season with her strong medal winning performance (21st-21:18). Milton’s scoring concluded with senior co-captain Rachal Cronin’s effort (35th-22:05).  Continued improvement from sophomore Victoria Wagner (41st-22:13) and the gutsy effort by fellow sophomore Anna Renko (50th-22:25) was a big factor in the Lady Eagles dominating team win.  Also running varsity for Milton were junior Michelle Pick (52nd-22:31), senior Kim Toscano (53rd-22:31) & junior Hallie Howell (70th-22:55).  218 runners completed the race

Varsity Boys

Being predicted as finishing 4th, Milton took that to heart and upset 3 state ranked teams on the way to meet victory over 26 schools!  The Eagles (1st-122 pts) survived the front running of LaGrange (2nd-140 pts) that had four finishers in the top-10, and Pickens County (3rd-184 pts). Both LaGrange & Pickens were ranked #2 & #3 in AAAA, Milton is unranked in AAAAAA.  With no finishers in the top-16, the Eagles were able to use their team depth & pack running finishes securing the meet win! Milton was again led by sophomore Clay Marshall. Marshall ran in the top-10 for the latter half of the race but eventually settled for 17th (17:27).  The Eagles then finished with a flurry of runners in the next 20 seconds to score the low point total. Fellow sophomore Jack Bluth (20th-17:30) led the team as junior Connor Cole (24th-17:34), senior co-captain Kevin McGorrey (29th-17:39) & sophomore Matt McGorrey (32nd-17:47) concluded the scoring and captured the team title.  Fellow sophomores John Fravel (50th-17:58) and Jacques DuPlessis (52nd-18:01) contributed valuable points towards the meet win.  Milton also had junior Mikey Newell (55th-18:03), senior Brendan Kemple (70th-18:21) & sophomore Brock Schutt (78th-18:28) running in the varsity race. There were 250 finishers.

JV Girls

The Lady Eagles followed suit of their varsity teammates and survived a scare from the Greyhounds of Pope to defeat 9 schools in recording the meet win (1st-31 pts). Pope was a close runner-up (2nd-46 pts) and Lakeview Academy was a distant 3rd (110 pts).  Junior Meagan Thistleton led for the majority of the race and eventually settled for the runner-up position (2nd-22:31) to lead the Milton effort. Senior co-captain Katie Robinson ran upfront the majority of the race as well (4th-22:42) and was followed by the strong race and strong finish by fellow senior co-captain Addie Luxton (6th-22:49).  All of the Lady Eagles in the race walked away with individual medals as sophomore Emily Velez was next (7th-23:15) & senior Sarah Hoffman concluded the scoring effort (12th-24:14).  Other medal winning Milton runners included junior Bishop Reeder (13th-24:18), sophomore Julianna Butzer (16th-24:27), junior Hayden Estes (19th-24:43) & sophomore Lindsey Van Etten (25th-25:08).  There were 87 finishers.

JV Boys

Not to be outdone, the final race of the day concluded the magnificent team efforts by the Eagles.  Milton (1st-38 pts) put all five of its scoring runners in the top-10 to fend-off a stiff challenge by Lakeview Academy (2nd-72 pts) that had the first three finishers in the race to defeat 14 scoring schools.  Mountain View (3rd-78 pts) had defeated the Eagles just 3 weeks ago was no match in this outstanding team-driven effort.  Freshman Michael McCarthy (5th-18:19) rebounded after a sub-par effort last week at Furman to lead Milton.  Junior Preston Meade (6th-18:37) did the same as well and was part of an Eagle flurry of finishes to easily secure the team title.  Senior co-captain Spencer Greene (8th-18:49), senior Peter Randall (9th-18:51) and freshman Valera Stettner (10th-19:02) made it a sweep of the team titles!  The top-25 finishers did receive medals and in that group were sophomore John Jurgens (12th-19:06), junior Nolan English (15th-19:14), junior Hunter Knapp (22nd-19:35) & senior Ryan Keefe (23rd-19:37).  132 runners completed the race.

Open Races

Freshman Cameron Irby (69th-25:21) & Jessica Rice (70th-25:21) led the Lady Eagles in the girls JV-C open race where Milton was 9th out of 23 scoring schools.  412 runners finished the second largest race of the day.

Senior Griffin Strom (67th-20:12) & junior Tyler Curl (75th-20:17) were the top runners for Milton in the boys JV-C open race where the Eagles were 13th out of 24 scoring schools. It was the largest race of the day with 487 finishers.

The Milton HS Cross Country teams compete next at the GHSA Region 5-AAAAAA meet at Boling Park in Canton, GA on November 2nd to qualify for the GHSA state meet.