News: Friday Night Lights
2024
On Friday September 6th the Falcons headed west after school for the 10th annual Friday Night Lights Festival which has grown to almost 4,000 runners. It is always a huge event and the team was ready to compete against top competition on the state meet course at Ivey Redmon Sports Complex.
The 1st race was the JV girls and conditions were still a little warm when the gun sounded to start the race. The crowded field presented a great opportunity for the 6 girls to test themselves and the team showed well, finishing 22nd of 43 teams. Dannika Scruggs was the top-finishing Falcon in 23:58.
The 2nd race was the boys 11-12 race and Parva Vyas led the way with an 11th place finish in a time of 18:10. He was followed by Jacob Gordon, Sky Choy, Michael DiGiacomo, and Riley Ward all running sub-19:00. The boys team finished 3rd of 22 teams.
The 9-10 boys race was next and the Falcons looked to dominate another JV-level race. Jared Crump was with the front pack the whole way and finished 3rd with a new PR of 17:32. He was followed by Amare Wakefield (7th, 17:59), Ethan Beck (11th, 18:19), Aryan Vyahalkar (13th, 18:26), and Luke Veilleux (21st, 18:36). The boys held off Cuthbertson 54-63 and finished 1st in the 43-team race.
After a couple races with no GH runners, the next race was the girls invitational. The young Falcons varsity squad was ready to step up its level of competition and the experience would be a valuable one. It was a battle and the girls definitely learned lessons from the race. Freshman Isabel Short set a new PR leading the way in 20:42. The girls finished 15th out of 34 schools.
The final race of the day was the Boys Championship at 9:40pm. The race went out extremely fast with the top 5 boys running the 1st mile between 4:58 and 5:17. The boys finished 7th as a team out of 32 schools. They were led by senior Seamus O’Driscoll (PR of 16:12), junior Gabe Cardenas (16:39), freshman Nathan Vo (PR 16:47), junior Miguel Carrasco Gomez (17:05), and sophomore Rafa Dlott (17:23).
The next big invitational for the Falcons is the Adidas Wolfpack Race on Saturday September 21st at Wake Med.