Green Hope Cross Country

Saturday, August 24th marked the start of the invitational season for the Green Hope Falcons.  The Providence Invitational at McAlpine Park is a big, early season race on a fair course.  It was the first race for most of the boys in the championship race at 8:00am so there was a bit of an unknown factor to the race.  When the gun sounded that race went out very fast.  The field of teams was not huge, but there was some very high-quality teams including NC #1 Marvin Ridge.  The 1st 5 boys came through the mile in under 5:18 and the pace stayed fast.  Seamus O’Driscoll went out with the lead pack with Gabe Cardenas not far behind.  Things spread out a little as the race progressed, but the boys ran well.  One of the top 7 boys was a bit under the weather and 1 is dealing with a nagging injury, but the team earned as strong 2nd place finish behind Marvin Ridge and they edged a strong Weddington team.  Leading the Falcons was senior Seamus O’Driscoll (8th place, 16:18) who was followed by junior Cardenas (13th, 16:27).  Rounding out the scoring was junior Miguel Carrasco Gomez (20th, career PR of 16:46), freshman Nathan Vo (28th, 16:55), and senior Matheo Destouesse (32nd, career PR 17:03).  

The 2nd race of the morning was the girls championship.  All 10 girls who traveled to Charlotte were entered in this race.  The girls team is once again extremely young.  Of the 10 runners racing were 9 9th or 10th graders and 1 senior.  The race also started off very fast, but the girls fought throughout.  For the 1st big race of the year, there were some very nice improvements displayed.  The team finished 12th of 16 teams as they were led by freshman Isabel Short (PR 21:24), sophomore Olivia Percival-Shim (21:37), sophomore Riley Blake (PR 21:50), freshman Kali Hansen (PR 21:50), and sophomore Sophie Stachler (PR 22:39).  

The final race with GH runners was the JV Boys race.  This is always one of the most fun races of the year with a crowded field of runners and some fast time.  Traditionally the boys have dominated this race over the years, showing off the depth of the program.  The team hoped this year would be no different and they did not disappoint.  The boys dominated the field.  In fact, if it was GH vs the other 27 teams in the race combined, GH easily would have won this race.  Individually, sophomore berk Robottom (17:40) held off teammate sophomore Jared Crump (17:47) for the win.  Sophomores Luke Veilleux (4th, 18:09), Amare Wakefield (5th, 18:18), Aryan Vyahalkar (6th, 18:25), and junior Parker Gray (9th, 18:29) all earned top-10 finishes.  The team scored an extremely low 18 points to win and 15 of the 22 runners ran career PRs.  The future looks strong for the boy’s program.  

The next invitational is Friday Night Lights on Friday September 6th.