News: Hagan Stone Classic
2024
On Saturday October 5th the Falcons headed west to Hagan Stone Park near Greensboro for the Hagan Stone Classic. This would be the final invitational race of the year and the team was excited to race on a new course for most of them. Hagan Stone is a fair course, but it is a bit more difficult than Wake Med due to the technical nature of it and the many roots and sharp turns along with lots of short hills.
The first race was the boys championship and the team knew they were the favorites going in even though they were missing one of the top 5 runners. Seamus O’Driscoll went out hard with the leaders and held his spot throughout the race finishing 3rd in 16:22. Junior Gabriel Cardenas finished in 9th place (16:50), sophomore Rafa Dlott in 12th (17:03), senior Logan Blake 17th (17:12), and sophomore Berk Robottom 28th (17:36) rounded out the team scoring as the Falcons won the team title 59-86 over Science Hill HS out of Tennessee.
The second race of the day was the girls championship race. The girls team was without 3 of its normal top 5 runners. The girls went out fast and several faded a bit as the race progressed, but freshman Juliette Diaz ran a very strong race and set a huge PR (22:08) to finish in 36th place, edging fellow freshman Kali Hansen (37th, 22:08). Junior Charis Choy (22:36), sophomore Lilly Burdick (22:43), and sophomore Olivia Percival-Shim (23:04) were the other scoring runners as the girls finished 7th out of 16 teams.
The Boys JV was the 3rd race of the day and the team expected to dominate this race as they once again have an extremely deep team this year. For an invitational race it was quite a convincing win as the boys finished with a score of 20pts and had 8 of the top 10 finishers. Sophomore Aryan Vyahalkar (career PR 17:48) edged sophomore Amare Wakefield (17:53) for the individual title. Sophomore Luke Veilleux (4th 18:20), junior Andrew Leary (6th, 18:24), and senior Sky Choy (7th, 18:25) combined with the top 2 runners for a very low score of 20pts!
The final race was the Girls JV. The runners were not sure what the team results would look like as a couple girls were asked to race in the varsity race with the 3 girls missing the meet. But those who toed the line would not be denied the team title in a bit of a surprise. Senior Claire O’Driscoll went out fast and kept her pace finishing in 4th place with a career PR of 23:08. Sophomore Tanveer Sharma (10th, 24:01), freshman Isabelle Anderson (12th, 24:15), senior Sarah Smith (16th, 24:40), and sophomore Hannah Oh (23rd, 24:44) led the girls to a very low tea score of 31pts.
The Falcons have one more regular season meet and then the Conference Championship on October 15th.