Green Hope Cross Country

For the first time in several years, the Falcons competed in the Adidas/Wolfpack Invitational at Wake Med Soccer Park on September 19th. Only the boys raced in the event, though, as the girls have their sights set on racing in Greensboro next weekend. The locality of the race allowed the team to enter a whopping 92 boys in the day’s event so many runners got to experience the feel of a large invitational. Typically, the Adidas meet is one of the most competitive in the state each fall featuring top teams from North Carolina and several others from all over the southeast.

Roughly 80 GH boys started the day off at 8:00am in the JV Red race. The field was huge (383 total runners and 29 scoring teams) and the conditions were very good for racing. The Falcons once again dominated the JV race by scoring a perfect score of 15 points as the Falcons claimed the top 7 spots and 10 of the top 12. As a testament to Green Hope's depth, the Falcons could have withheld their first ten finishers in the race and still won the team race.

Individually, sophomore Daniel Vo (16:46) edged classmate Sean Petersen (16:46) for the individual crown. Senior Jayquan Williams also broke 17:00 (16:57) and was followed by freshman Alex Huml (17:04) and senior Bryce Korabik (17:10). Most of the many GHXC runners in this race set personal 5K PRs. In very impressive fashion, 18 GH runners broke the 18:00 mark in the race.

The field of teams for the varsity race was loaded. With Green Hope, Broughton, Weddington, Cardinal Gibbons, Apex, and East Chapel Hill in the race -- along with several top out-of-state teams -- the Falcons were hoping for a top-5 team finish. After a very fast race, they managed to edge Gibbons for fifth place (out of 33 teams). Leading the Falcons were three sophomores with Peyton Barish (16:10), Finn McBride (16:19), and Ian Delgado (16:22). They were followed by senior Henry Pehr (16:24) and junior Nick Veilleux (16:34). While the times were not exactly what some of the boys were hoping for, there were a couple PRs and the race results show some encouraging signs for the direction the boys are headed.

On the day, 27 Green Hope boys broke 18:00. Unofficially, there has probably never been a team in the state’s history put that many under 18:00 on one day -- and several others have the potential to do it later this year. It was another very impressive performance for the Falcons. Now the boys have two weeks off until the next invitational (the Great American on October 3 at WakeMed in Cary).