Green Hope Cross Country

The Falcons headed west to Charlotte Friday August 24^th to preview the McAlpine course in preparation for Saturday’s Providence Invitational.  After a pasta dinner and a night in a hotel the varsity boys were the 1^st to toe the line Saturday morning.  This would be a different look team as 6 of the top 8 boys from last year graduated and 12 of the top 15 current Falcons were taking the SAT or nursing injuries.  So the top 7 boys were asked to step up in the varsity race.  The team finished lower than usual (14^th in the championship race), but there were several very good performances from the boys. Senior Brandon Morton made a huge leap forward in his first invitational by running 17:11.  He was followed by promising freshman Ben Cale (17:53), senior Hiromu Koyama (18:19), sophomore Sanjay Kumar (18:25), senior Brendan Adkins (18:50), and senior Carter Jones(18:52). 

The girls varsity were in the mix for winning according the NC Runners’ pre-race predictions.  As the gun went off the girls got off to a conservative start while others went out hard.  The top 3 team spots shifted acouple times during the course of the race and the girls finished with mixed results.  Kelsey Vogel (7^th,19:20) and Bailey Fowler (8^th, 19:29) both earned top 10 individual finishes.  After the first two girls there was more than a one minute gap to #3 and that will need to be shortened a bit if the girls are to accomplish the goals this fall they would love to achieve.  There were several good early season times, though.  Natasha Abramowicz(20:43), Sophia Veilleux (20:51), Julie Tonon (20:51), Zoey Davila (21:03), andTess Davila (21:05) also helped lead the Falcons to a runner-up team finish as Weddington took home the title. 

After a 1 hour block with no Green Hope runners racing the JV boys race went off at 10:00am. This is a race the JV boys and girls traditionally dominate, but the boys race was a bit of an unknown with so many of the top 15 runners no tracing, but the boys hoped their depth would allow them to contend for the JV title.  From the start it was a battle between the Falcons and Weddington High School. Weddington eventually pulled out the win, but several JV Falcons ran bigPRs.  Sophomores Nicholas Polsinelli(18:23), Zander Selleseth (18:34), Jakub Kreuter (18:51), and Andrew Matthew (18:59) led the way. 

The final race of the day was the JV girls race and thegirls battled Charlotte Catholic. Catholic did not enter a team in a varsity race so this was their topgroup on the day and they ended up edging the Falcons by 4pts.  Sophomores Rebecca Robinson (21:45) and Sarah O’Sullivan (22:52) and freshmen Anna Tinglestad (23:39) and Katie Foppiano(23:43) were the top 4 scorers for the girls.

Overall it was a good day of racing and the Falcons gained valuable experience.  The next invitational is Friday Night Lights Sept. 7^th in Kernersville.