News: Friday Night Lights
2021
On Friday September 10th the Falcons headed west to Kernersville to run in the Friday Night Lights Invitational at Ivey Redmon Park. Ivey Redmon is the site of the state meet and not a particularly fast course, but the Friday Night Lights race is known as an exciting and energetic nighttime race so the runners always look forward to it. It was especially exciting this year as the event did not take place last year due to the pandemic.
The 1st of 5 races involving Green Hope runners was the girls JV race at 6:12. The girls were nervous at the line and some of them raced only 2 days earlier atWake Med, but this was going to be a great learning experience. This would not be about the team scores, butabout each girl pushing as hard as she could. Sophomore Lily Slaughter went out just behind a large lead pack. She looked strong the whole time and ran a great race and finished first for Green Hope in 22:52. She was followed by freshman Sarah Smith (23:59), freshman Paige Luecke (24:11), sophomore Kaitlin Elliott (24:23), and sophomore Gwen Slaughter (24:39).
The boys 11/12 race was next to toe the line. Tanner Harris and Zach Taylor went to the front right away. The weather was cool by the time the race started and the sun was nearly down. The two battled with a runner from Mount Tabor for the first two miles. Tanner cramped up and faded a bit, but Zach managed to pull away from the opponent and win the race in a time of 17:37. Quinn Morgan ran a solid race start to finish and finished in 4th with a huge PR of 18:19. He was followed by Cyrus Jahromi who ran a very strong 2nd half of the race and also set a career PR of 18:28 (6th place). Luke Bourke (18:33) and Saahil Patel (PR of 18:54) rounded out the top 5 as the boys finished in 1st place as a team in the race.
The 3rd race of the night was the boys 9/10 race. Sophomore Sebastian Percival-Shim was near the front the entire race and finished 3rd with a career PR of 17:46. He was followed by Tommy Dunn (career PR of 19:07), Theo Zalc (career PR of 19:07),Matt Dubrule (career PR 19:45), and Logan Blake (career PR of 20:18).
After an hour or so break for Green Hope athletes the varsity girls raced next in the Invitational race and got to race under the lights as the sun was completely down. This was the 1st 5K race for the girls team so they were excited to get out and see where they were. Kaela Brandon finished in 17th place with a new career best of 20:12 to lead the Falcons. Senior Katie Foppiano (career PR of 20:20) was not too far behind finishing in 20th place. Freshman Alicia Craia ran 20:51 in her 2nd ever 5K and finished almost simultaneously with junior Grace Boughton (20:51). Junior Alice Emel completed the scoring for the girls (huge career PR of 21:10) as the team finished 3rd behind North Lincoln and Providence.
The final race of the night, going off at 9:47pm, was the Championship boys race. The field was loaded with most of the teams who will be in the fight for the 4A title competing. With so many teams in the mix it would be impossible to know how the teams were doing as the race was unfolding, but it was clear the Falcons were battling and would be in the mix. When the dust cleared they finished 2nd to Weddington after beating Weddington at Providence. The 5 scoring Falcons were Jacob Kurak with a career PR of 16:11, Gavin Hansen with a PR of 16:13, Luke Young (16:22), Ben Cale (16:51), and Andrew Vo (16:55).
Overall it was a very good night of racing for the Falcons. The next race for Green Hope is the Adidas/Wolfpack Invitational Saturday September 18th.