2025 North Carolina
Boys State 8A Qualifier (5th Place)
Girls
Girls
State Champs
2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
Boys
State Champs
2010, 2017, 2022
Great American XC Festival
The 3rd major invitational of the season was held on the first weekend in October and for the first time in 3 years the Falcons would be racing in the Great American Cross Country Festival. This is considered to be one of the top races in the country each year and it would have its biggest field of runners ever in 2026. The race brings in some of the top teams from the Eastern United States and this year was no exception.
The first race of the day was the Girl’s JV I race at 8:00am. 15 girls were entered and were excited to start off the day of racing. Conditions were pretty good when the gun went off and the girls ended up earning a 9th place team finish of the 31 teams in the race. Senior Uma Upadhyay ran a 15 second career PR of 22:19 to lead the girls.
The 2nd race was the Boy’s JV I race at 8:30am. This was the largest race of the day and one of the biggest of the year with 439 finishers. Several of the guys ran a strong second half of the race and the boys managed a 4th place finish out of the 41 scoring teams. The first three finishers set new career bests as senior Graham Severson (17:55), sophomore Logan Call (17:55), and sophomore Matthew Leary (18:03) paved the way.
The 3rd race on the schedule had no Green Hope runners, but the 4th race was the Boy’s “Blue” Race at 9:25am with the Falcons looking for a top 10 team finish. The Blue Race is considered the 2nd-toughest of the 4 varsity level races of the day. The team finished 6th of 44 teams in the race, but it was not the best performance of the year for the boys. Nathan Vo was in the lead pack throughout and finished with a time of 15:42. Rafa Dlott (16:45), Ryan Skibbe (PR 16:46), Patrick Dolle (17:12), and Justin Herrick (17:18) were the scorers.
The 5th race of the 13 of the day and final one with Green Hope runners was the Girl’s Race of Champions at 9:50am. This is one of the deepest races of the fall season for girl’s cross country anywhere in the country. While the team was not in the mix for the team title, the Falcons wanted to see where they stand vs. some of the best teams in the Southeastern U.S. Halfway through the race the team was ahead of defending state champion Green Level. While Green Level managed to beat the Falcons by 1 spot in the team standings, the girls proved they belonged in the field of the 41 teams in the elite Race of Champions with a 16th place finish. Freshman Riley Reeves continued her impressive season with a new PR of 17:57 and moved into 3rd place all-time at Green Hope. Junior Juliette Diaz went out fast as well and set a new career best of 19:18. Kali Hansen (19:59), Isabel Short (20:10), and Riley Blake (20:59) completed the scoring for the girls.
The next big race for the Falcons is the Kernersville Invitational on October 10th at Ivey Redmon and it will be the first time Green Hope has entered the relatively new invitational.