by Mark Turner
White County News
The White County Middle School cross country teams put together a stellar performance at the North Georgia Mountain League Championships last week in Ellijay.
The WCMS boy's team won the league title, while the girl's squad finished in second place.
The boy's team had four runners place in the top seven among 86 runners in the field to easily win the league title with 35 points. Dawson County finished second with 76 points, followed by Lumpkin County (85), Clear Creek (93), Pickens (112), Union County (125) and Fannin County (166) in the team standings.
Reid Murphey led the way for the Warriors, winning the two-mile race with a time of 11:32, beating Lumpkin County Cannon Cole by almost more than a minute (12:29) with Fannin County's Jamel Johnson (12:47) and Dawson County's Noah Gloeckner (13:08) the next two runners to cross the finish line. White County had a trio of runners right behind the first runners, with Jace Caudell (13:11), Gus Brackett (13:17) and Callen Fain (13:18) finishing fifth through seventh, respectively.
Maverick Barton crossed the finish line at 14:10 to finish 16th overall, with Colin Nguyen in 20th place at 14:18 and Bentley Brooks was 22nd at 14:27.
Beckham Vandegriff (15:30), Parker Nguyen (15:39), Abram Stewart (16:14), Angel Cabrales (16:20), Nolan Dean (17:13), Gavin Gabhart (17:17), Graham Seale (17:39) and Nathan Wood (17:49) finishing off the Warriors' lineup.
The WCMS girl's team also made a run at the league title, finishing with 74 team points to place second behind Fannin County (29 points).
Lumpkin County was third at 78 points, followed by Clear Creek (79), Union County (128), Pickens (156) and Dawson County (158).
Karis Goodman had the top time for the Lady Warriors, finishing seventh among 83 runners with a time of 15:24.
Julianne Harris also broke into the Top 10, finishing ninth with a time of 15:26.
Reese Rickman was 13th at 15:58, Kate Collier was 17th at 16:28 and Ana Collier was 30th at 17:33.
Kara Watkins (20:16) and Abigail Brinkman (22:20) rounded out the girl's lineup.