Green Hope Cross Country

A group of 20 or so Falcons started off the invitational portion of the cross country season by heading to Charlotte to run in the Providence Invitational.  The race is always a big early season race, but was a little smaller this year due to Covid restrictions.  All runners who made it to McAlpine Park drove over to Charlotte with their parents as overnight field trips are not currently allowed.  This kept the numbers of Green Hope in the race much smaller than normal.

The boys championship race was the first race of the day.  Weddington, Cardinal Gibbons and Green Hope were the top seeds heading into the race and all expect to be in theconversation for the state championship at the end of the year.  So it was expected to be a very good early season battle.  The first mile was a little slower than expected as the GH boys came through in around5:05-5:10.  The boys had a bit of a pack behind the lead pack at the small hill. As the race developed it looked as though it would be a 2-team race with GH and Weddington, but Lake Norman had 2 runners in the top 10 so they jumped into the mix as well.  As the boys kicked it in at the turn to head down the final stretch it looked like it would be close and come down to final positioning in the home stretch.  Several GH runners caught runners in front of them and the Falcons pulled out the win over Lake Norman and Weddington (82ptsto 85 to 97).  The boys were led by Jacob Kurak (13^th, 16:20), Gavin Hansen (18^th, 16:29), Luke Young (21, 16:40), Ban Cale (23^rd, 16:51), and Liam Young (25^th,16:56).  Bringing home a large invitational trophy was a nice way to start the year.

The second race of the day was the girls championship,but the Falcons did not field a full team as only 4 girls could make it to Charlotte.  The girls were excited to race, though, and got the opportunity to see how they would perform in a high level championship race.  For 2 of the 4girls it was their first invitational ever and for all 4 it was their first chance to race in a varsity race.  Freshman Alicia Craia led the way with a time of 21:06. 

The final race of the day with Green Hope runners was the Boys JV Race at 10:00.  The temperature had risen a great deal by then as the boys did not get to race in the cooler weather of earlier in the morning.  The boys did not have all of their top JV runners due to the travel restrictions,but they were excited to try to battle for the team title.  The team usually does very well in this race,but it was clear right away that this would be a tough team race to pullout.  Sophomore Dax Mahone went out with the leaders, but then made a move to pull away from the front pack around the2K mark as he pushed hard up and down the one hill on the course.  The Falcon runners behind him tried to keep pace, but Cardinal Gibbons proved to be too deep on this day.  Green Hope finished 4^th with 96ptsas times were  little slower than normal due to the heat.  Dax brought home a commanding win (over a field of 284 runners) in a time of 17:56.  He was followed by juniors Cyrus Jahromi(19:16) and Saahil Patel (19:22), sophomore Tommy Dunn (20:11), and junior Connor Blake (20:11). 

It was a good start to the racing season with the next big invitational coming up on February 10^th as the Friday Night Lights Festival will be held at Ivey Redmon Park in Kernersville.