News: Mideast Regional
2019
On Saturday November 2nd the Falcons headed back to the Carolina Horse Park for the Mideast Regional Meet. This was the 1st time in more than a decade that the regional was not held at Wake Med Soccer Park. Many of the regional teams were not happy to be going to the park as the quality and safety of the course have been questioned by many who have run on it. With over 1/3 of the race run on the horse track, runners have to be careful of the 1,000’s of large divots left in the clay by the horses that race there. Regardless of the poor conditions of the course, the boys and girls needed to run well in order to qualify for the state meet on November 9th.
The boys race began at 10:00 and as usual they were matched against a very strong regional field. 25% of the teams that race on the regional day earn the right to move on. Since 21 teams entered the race, 5 would get to advance to the state meet next weekend. The boys knew they had a good shot, but the difficult and dangerous course created a bit of an unknown factor. Panther Creek went out fast, but at the milemark the boys were grouped just behind 4-5 PC runners. The 2nd half of the race belonged to the Falcons as they edged PC 48-52 for the 7th boys regional title in history. Thomas Vo finished asregional runner-up and was followed by Kyle Davis-Isaac (7th), Liam McBride (10th), Ben Cale (12th), Michael Taylor (17th),Seth Young (21st), and Sanjay Kumar (29th).
The girls race kicked off at 10:40am. With only 17 girls teams entered, qualifying for the state meet would be a bit more difficult as only 4 would advance. The girls expected Pinecrest and Panther Creek to be locks so the team would be fighting for two spots with the rest of the field. Apex Friendship also appeared to have a bit of a pre-meet edge on the others so the girls knew they would have to beat Apex in order to punch a ticket to the state meet. The top 4 girls were in fairly good position at the mile mark, but runners 5-7 were a ways back, giving Apex the edge at that point in the race. With just under 1 mile left, several of the GH girls made a move. Senior Alice Barry passed around 18 runners in the last mile earning valuable points and freshman Grace Boughton and sophomore Reagan McDaniel nearly set career PRs on the very challenging course. With the moves made in the second half of the race the girls easily took home the 4th spot. Kelsey Vogel (5th, 1st team All-Region), Reagan McDaniel (24th), Natasha Abramowicz (25th),Grace Boughton (29th), and Alice Barry (38th) were the scoring runners for the Falcons.
The teams race in the state championship Saturday November 9th with the boys running at 2:00pm and the girls at 3:00pm. The girls will be making their 18th consecutive state meet appearance.