Green Hope Cross Country

The Providence Invitational marks the traditional start to the GHXC invitational season.  The Falcons have been attending the event for many years and have had quite a bit of success at the meet over the years. This year the Falcons would be a little short-handed as 10 runners could not attend due to the SAT Saturday.  This would be, though, the 1^st official overnight invitational since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Out-of-county travel was prohibited in 2020 and in 2021 official overnight trips were not allowed, so 36 athletes were very excited to get the chance to hit the road for a fun 2 day trip to Charlotte.

The 1^st race of the day was the boy’s championship race.  The boys were without their top runner from the kickoff classic (Gavin Hansen), but they still hoped to compete for the top trophy.  The race went out fast as it always does and at the halfway point it was difficult to tell which team was in the lead. Charlotte Catholic had three runners near the front, but their 4^th and (especially) 5^th runners were a ways back.  All of the boys did not have their best day,but there were some good early season performances for the 1^st 5K of the year for most of them.  Senior Luke Young (13^th, 16:22.8) and Liam Young (19^th, 16:40.4) led the way to a 2^nd place finish (to Marvin Ridge) followed by scoring runners Andrew Vo (22^nd, 16:59.9), Dax Mahone (25^th,17:03.9), and Anton Cedergrund (33^rd, 17:18.5). 

The 2^nd race of the day was the girl’s championship and all Green Hope ladies attending would be entered in this event.  3 of the normal top 5 were not able to race today so the team score was sure to be higher than normal.  The girls went out to challenge themselves and several girls were asked to run “up” in the championship race.  Alice Emel and Grace Boughton went out hard and ended up leading the girls team. Alice finished in 45^th place with a time of 21:04.09 and Grace Boughton finished in 21:45.35

Next up, after a set of lower level varsity races, was the JV boy’s race.  This is always by far the largest field of runners on the day and the Falcons have traditionally shown the depth of their boy’s squad by doing very well in this event.  They were sure to challenge for the team title and at the halfway point it looked like the boys were in the lead as Matt Dubrule and Seamus O’Driscoll battled for the lead.  Marvin Ridge ended up running a very strong last mile and edged the boys for the team title, but sophomore O’Driscoll won the individual title with a new PR of 17:30.9 with Matt Dubrule (4^th,17:58.4) and Theo Zalc (8^th, 18:40.2) also earning top 10 finishes. 

The next big race for the team is the very exciting Friday Night Lights Invitational on September 9^th.