Mild temperatures and overcast skies made for a pleasant Saturday for the last regular season meet of the year. And even though late week rain made for some wet, muddy spots around McIntosh Nature Preserve, the course held up very well. And this meet had a little bit of everything - from a surprise birthday party (Happy16th Susan!) to the debut of Fathead Camden. I even heard some kid in the JV race ran with clown makeup? Oh, and most importantly, there was some great racing from South.
Coach Wood Invitational
For whatever reason, this meet was not quite as deep as it has been in recent years. It still took a fast time to win and the top end talent was there, but just looking at the girl’s championship race, to be in the top 100, you had to run 40 seconds faster in 2022 than you did this year. That’s not to take away from what South did here on Saturday. On the girl’s side you had 4 season’s best times and 12 PR’s. For the guy’s it was 17 new PR’s (and one tie). It looks like they are peaking at the right time.
The Boys
The guys race was billed as a “no doubter” with Marist’s Tommy Latham entered. While he has not gone undefeated on the season his two “losses” both came at huge out of state meets where he still ran in the 14:40’s. And Latham took off from the start and left little doubt to the outcome, building a 10 second lead by the mile, increasing it to 20 by the 2-mile and cruising to a 25-second win in a pedestrian time (for him) of 15:03.
After Latham, a chase pack of 7 had formed, with other runners strung out behind them. Ben Winn, meanwhile, was leading a secondary pack made up of the 16-20th place runners. Just before the two-mile, Ben had ditched that group and was now up with a group chasing the top 10. He continued to pick runners off and the last place I saw him was with about 600m to go and Ben had climbed up to 7th, but he lost a couple spots in the final kick to finish up in 9th with his second fastest 5k ever.
I’m feeling like a broken record when it comes to Adam Zorko. You know the drill…started off way back, steadily moved up, yada yada yada. This time he went from 59th to 45th to 35th before finally winding up 32nd in a PR 16:17. If Adam ever drops a spot in a race, it’s going to be major news!
Wyatt Longstreth got out well, faded a bit in the middle, but rally for a strong finish to take the 3rd spot for South in 101st. Rishi Nagappan held pace with Wyatt throughout and wound up 113th. If we could have known what kind of motivation a huge foam cutout of Camden Coker’s face would have on him, we would have had one made weeks ago. But the surprise from his “big” did the trick and he raced to a new PR in 121st place. Not to be outdone, Aariv Gupta needed no “Fat Aariv” to get him going, as he knocked 36 seconds off of his PR to drop under 18 minutes for the first time. Grant Longstreth tied his PR in 173rd place, while Thomas Lichtenwalner gave it a go after nursing an injury, but wasn’t quite ready to race as he wound up 199th. Hopefully he can get healthy in time for region. As a team, South took 12th out of 31 teams.
The JV boys had a team finish of 13th and the PR party started right from the top. Jaxson Herman led the way for South as he dipped under nineteen minutes for the first time, finishing 79th. He was followed closely by Pierson Long, who also broke the 19-minute barrier to PR in 87th place. 5 seconds later, you had Anubhav Behera just hold off Ben Dubrow at the line in 95th and 96th, with Anubhav dropping a whopping 44 seconds off his PR. Josh Wilson finished up the scoring for South in 120th. But South wasn’t done, as the next four guys - Nikil Selladurai (145th), Christian Wiese (151st), Ryan Gorgone (157th) and John Ryan (164th) all managed PR’s, breaking 20 minutes. And after them was Yash Panchal running - shocker - 20:00! I’ll stop there, but the PR’s didn’t stop, so congrats as well to Kyle Yan, Ethan Lava, Lucas Rymer, Rushil Roy-Chowdhury, Kelvin Gao, Shreyas Jukkulker and Vishwa Lingatlu.
The boys JV race also featured my most humorous moment of the day. After making my way to the final corner into the finish, I noticed Rishi and Aariv loudly cheering the South guys in. “Good support - well done,” I think. Then I hear them cheering for other guys and I think “Good sportsmanship - well done.” Then I hear them cheering for more guys and my mind shifts to “Wow, they know a lot of people in this race.” It was shortly after that I made the full leap to reality - they are randomly making up names for people and then cheering like their biggest fans as they head down the finish chute.
The Girls
Similar to the guys race, Pace Academy’s Caroline Hood had a pretty sizable gap on the field in terms of PR coming in, but there were a couple other ladies that had also gone under 18 minutes, so wasn’t sure what to expect. Hood went out hard and dared others to go with her. Ruby Little of Marist, the next fastest from a seeding standpoint, took the challenge and they had separated from the rest of the field by the mile.Two girls were together in 3rd & 4th and a few seconds behind them Izzy Yonas was with another pack, sitting 7th. Molly Hanlon was next and then it was exciting to see Paige Harden, Danielle Schmuckal and Susan Price all come through in quick succession. About 30 seconds back, it was also nice to see Pratima Yellayi, Ava Wright and Landon Layman all together.
After the first loop, Hood had pulled away and you could see that Ruby, though still in 2nd, was going to pay a price for trying to go with her. Izzy had moved up to 3rd, about 15 seconds behind Little, but had a huge pack of girls just behind her. Molly was in a group battling for 50th, with Paige right around 100th. Dani was 10 seconds back and Susan another 5.
Caroline Hood went on to a dominating win, running 17:41. But Izzy had a great race as she ran Little down and held off any other challengers to snag 2nd overall with a new PR of 18:17. The rest of the ladies didn’t gain much ground, but didn’t give up any as well, as they pretty much stayed around the same positions for all of the last loop. That left Molly in 54th and Paige 101st. Dani grabbed a new PR, landing in 117th and Susan broke 22 minutes for the first time with her 144th place finish. The rest of the varsity ladies had stellar days as well, all setting new PR’s. Ava got under 23 minutes to finish 176th, with Landon 187th and Pratima 190th. South took 14th as a team.
The JV girls kept the good vibes going as they had 4 season’s bests and 6 new PR’s in their race. Ashley Wilson set the pace with a PR and 72nd place finish. Arushi Mishra was next in 170th (SB), with the final scorers coming in quick succession - Jules Min 204th, Katie Wilusz 208th (PR) and Sadie Morgan 210th (PR). Kaitlyn Stinson (233rd) and Lily Jenkins (236th - SB) rounded out the top 7 as South finished 24th in the team standings. Congrats as well to Saanvi Rambole, Aanya Kungwarni and Chaeryn Song for notching new PR’s as well.
Up Next - Region Championships
Class 7A-Region 6 Championships will be held this Friday, 10/20. After several years of holding this meet at Roper Park in Jasper (site of the early season Pickens Preview), we are getting a change of venue as they move the race to Chattahoochee Pointe Park. Follow this link for all the pertinent race info, noting especially the odd parking plan (park at Lambert High School and get bussed to the race). So make sure you factor that into your schedule.
As for the race itself, it is easy to say runners have been preparing themselves for the state meet all year, but first you have to get there, so don’t look past this one. Top 4 teams punch their ticket to state. It should be fun for South, as there will be War Eagles in contention for the individual title on both the boys and girls side, but it will be no easy task as there are a number of runners from several schools that could be in contention.
In terms of the team battles, for the ladies, on paper it looks like a close match between West Forsyth and Milton at the top. But South seems to be peaking at the right time so I wouldn’t be surprised to see them putting up a good fight as well. On the guys side, I mentioned this early in the season - Region 6 is stacked! You have 5 of the top 10 teams in 7A and one of them isn’t going to get in. Denmark and Lambert look to be the leaders among these teams, but between South, Milton and West, it is likely going to come down to who has the better day for those last two spots. Times don’t matter, just placing, so just focus on running down that next jersey in front of you. And for the 6-7 runners, with it being this tight, you can make a huge difference. It could be the last race of the season, so leave it all out there.
