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Nealeigh Broadwell was among the top runners for WCHS at the Eye Opener Invitational in South Carolina. (Photo/Mark Turner) -
Iyan Windham was among the top runners for WCHS at the Eye Opener Invitational in South Carolina. (Photo/Mark Turner)
On Saturday, the White County High School cross country team takes part in the Darlington Festival in Rome. The meet kicks off a busy couple of weeks for the Warrior squads as the runners will race four times in a span of 15 days to wrap up the regular season schedule.
The WCHS squad last competed on Sept. 14 an the Eye Opener Invitational in Spartanburg, S.C. After Saturday's race in Rome, the WCHS program will host the annual Mountain Invitational Thursday, Oct. 3, at Unicoi State Park north of Helen.
Five days later on Oct. 8, WCHS will compete at the RMA Runaway at Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, before wrapping up the regular season slate on Oct. 12 at the Coach Wood Invitational in Whitesburg.
The Warrior runners will then turn their attention to the Region 7-AAAA meet later this month, and the Class AAAA state meet on Nov. 2.
Earlier the month at the Eye Opener event, the WCHS squads competed with some of the best runners from South Carolina. The event was part of the SCRunner Cross Country Series, and featured 32 teams in the boys' top division and 18 in the girls'' top race. WCHS was the lone school in the event from Georgia.
The Lady Warriors finished seventh in the girls' team standings. Riverside won the team title with 67 points, followed by Dorman (100), JL Mann (102), Science Hill (105), Seneca (128), Eastside (192) and WCHS (228).
The Lady Warriors had three runners finish in the Top 40 among the field of 162 runners. Ellie Gearing set the pace for WCHS, finishing 34th with a time of 21:15, while Nealeigh Broadwell was 35th at 21:!6, and Sydnee Nix was 38th at 21:22.
Josie Stover was in the next wave of runners, finishing 63rd at 22:24, while Maggie Davidson was 71st at 22:36. Reese Vandegriff finished 80th at 22:50, and Leah Alexander was 86th with a time of 23:04 to finish off the scoring portion of the lineup.
Lily Gearing (23:20), Micalla Corcimigilia (23:59) and Haylie Bailey (24:54) rounded out the Lady Warriors' lineup.
On the boys' side, Dorman took the team title with 130 points, followed by T.L. Hannah (13), Eastside (156), Christ School (211) and Wando (217). The Warriors finished 24th.
Iyan Windham was the lone runner to finish in the Top 50 of the 311 runners in the race, posting a time of 17:23 to finish in 47th place. Eamonn O'Bryant was the next Warrior to cross the finish line, finishing 62nd with a time of 17:33. Lance Kelley (19:11), Maverick Aguilar (19:21), Kyler Mayo (20:43), Hector Molina (21:47), Issac Sosebee (22:39) round out the scoring group. Dakota Seabolt (22:57), Cole Gearing (23:07), and Josh Kerlin (24:41) also compete in the race for the Warriors.