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News: Falcon runners bring home Seahawk titles and PRs

Sep 06

2014

  • Sat Sep 6, 2014

The Falcons traveled to Wilmington the weekend of September 5-6 to run in the Omega Seahawk Invitational. Saturday marked the first time the race was held at the fairgrounds adjacent to the airport, as the event was moved away from UNCW. The course is a relatively basic two laps around a field with no hills and no shade. A potentially very hot day was cooled down with early morning showers and clouds. The varsity girls ran in a downpour and extremely muddy conditions. The sun came out during the two races with no Green Hope runners and it started to heat up again before another round of heavy rain and thunder led to a 20 minute delay. When the day of racing resumed light rain and overcast skies allowed for some pretty good late summer conditions—although the course remained very muddy for the day.

The first race of the day was the championship boys race. Conference foe Apex won the team competition fairly handily. The Falcons were edged out in the battle for 2nd place by West Johnston, but all six Green Hope finishers ran personal bests and it was a very good performance from the young Falcons. Henry Pehr once again led the team (16:19) and was followed closely by Brian Huitt’s breakout performance of 16:34. Michael Kolor (17:09), Michael Dudash (17:11), Cole Hagstrom (17:11), and Nick Veilleux (17:13) formed a tight 3-6 pack.

The second race of the day was the girls championship race. As the girls prepared for the start of the race, the skies opened up and the rains came. Despite the conditions the girls won their 6th straight Seahawk Invitational (41-81 over 2nd place Providence). Elly Henes (18:37), Kelly Fitzgerald (19:03), Morgan Adams (19:10), Katie Tomasi (19:12), Elisa Sargent (19:16), Theresa Enright (19:16), and Sheridan Wood (20:19) led the team to victory.

After the short weather delay, the JV boys took to the muddy course and Jared Eytcheson (17:14) led almost start to finish to earn his first invitational individual victory. Bryce Korabik (17:30), Brendan Vasarhelyi (17:36), Stevie Winiecki (17:38), and Patrick Stylski (18:00) were the scorers for the Falcons as the JV squad followed up their victory in Charlotte two weeks ago by topping the field of 23 schools (31-47 over 2nd place Apex) for another invitational win.

Sarah Taylor (19:40) went to the front of a pack of four GH runners and looked very strong in winning the JV girls race to also claim her first career invitational victory. She was followed by Kayla Hall (2nd place, 19:53), Samantha Kolor (3rd, 20:00), Martina Savage (4th, 20:02), and Emily Jordan (9th, 21:06) to pace the Falcons to the convincing win over the 16-team field (18-63 over 2nd place Apex).

The story of the boys developmental race was the youth of the Green Hope team. Of the 15 runners who lined up 9 were 9th graders, 4 10th graders, and 2 11th graders. For several runners it marked their first career 5K so it was a bit of a mystery how the race would play out, but the Falcons as a group ran one of the better developmental team races in Green Hope’s history. Freshman Peyton Barish (17:55) made a move in the last mile of the race and pulled away to a commanding victory. Nick Brady (3rd, 18:35), Ryan Tsolis (4th, 18:37), Matthew Bakley (5th, 18:46), Luke Bakley (8th, 18:56), Daniel Vo (9th, 18:58), and Jose Maciel Madera (10th, 19:03) all finished in the top 10 leading the Falcons to the win.

The final race of the day was the girls developmental race. Freshman Lauren McLaughlin (20:37) took control of the race early and beat the field by 45 seconds. She was followed by Katie Surratt (2nd, 21:22), Summer Hanks (3rd, 21:23), Shannon Kelly (4th, 21:40), and Nicole Colberg (6th, 22:26) as the Falcons nearly pulled off a perfect team score in cruising to the win.

The Falcons have the next two Saturdays off and then will return to a their invitational schedule with races in Greensboro and Washington, DC on September 27. Those meets are followed by the Great American XC Festival in Cary on October 4, and the final invitational in Kernersville on October 11.