Region Championship

I haven’t really found myself nervous going into any meets this year.  And historically, South has had very little trouble qualifying for State.  But when Milesplit declares 7A-region 6 as “loaded” meaning there are more teams deserving of a spot at state then will go, I’ll admit to some butterflies before the first races went off.

The Boys

The varsity boys was being trumped as a possible preview of the showdown for the top team spot at State, but Lambert was still down their top runner and had others missing due to quarantine, so that duel never materialized.  Although Denmark showed they were ready for the challenge, putting all of their top 5 in the first 11 spots to easily take the Region champ crown.  So that left 4 schools (Lambert, West, Gainesville and South) with legitimate shots at those final 3 state spots.

As the race played out, the first bright spot for South was seeing Nate Verska stuck like glue on the shoulder of Denmark’s Ethan Ashley.  Based on times, Ashley showed as a 20-second favorite, so to watch Nate hang with him not just at the beginning, but as they came around the mile and two mile was quite a sight.  And even though Ashley separated a bit over the last half mile to take the win in 15:56, Nate’s runner-up finish, just seven seconds back, was impressive.

I thought with a small meet like this, just 7 teams and 49 runners, it would be easy to keep track of how things were shaping up, but behind Ethan and Nate, things were a blur.  Denmark’s dominance was clear, but as they came around the 3-loop course the first time, it was tough to tell where South sat.  West had two up front, there were a whole lot of Lambert and Gainesville, but Ben Bergey was the only other South runner in the top 20, although Pujith Veeravelli, Sebastian Elisan, Sam Gullo and Devin Schmuckal were all close together.  

By mile two the runners had spread out a bit.  Ben was still looking good, but it still felt like a lot of Lambert and Gainesville.  Pujith and Sebastian were starting to make their moves, as were West runners.  And while it wasn’t clear where things stood by the finish, what we knew for sure was that South had given their best effort.  Ben took 12th to garner All-Region 2nd team honors.  Pujith and Sebastian continued to pour it on that last lap as they took the 15th & 16th spots, while Sam Gullo closed out the scoring for South with his 25th place finish.  In Milesplit’s pre-race virtual meet, South was projected to finish 3rd with 88 points.  But each of South’s seven runners finished higher than where they were projected, pushing South to a 70 point score, which propelled them to 2nd place and a trip to State.  Lambert and West took the final two spots, with Gainesville missing out on state by a mere 3 points.

In the JV boys race, Harris Garmon ran a patient race that saw him steadily picking off runners, as each lap had him sitting in a better place.  And while he just missed a PR, he did lead South’s JV squad with his 6th place finish.  Following Harris, Aadi Jain, Brett Dunlap and Andrew Wilson all closed out their XC season scoring for South, taking 16th, 23rd and 40th respectively.  Josh Wilson closed out the scoring, finishing 50th.  I did learn something new in the JV race - Max Ressman doesn’t give up.  I know that because Max repeated his mantra (“I never give up”) over and over...and over, out loud, for the entirety of the 5k.  It clearly worked for him as he became the first guy to notch a PR for the day.  Congratulations as well to Kundan Vadlamani and Jay Ariga who also PR’d in this race.

The Girls

For our Varsity girls, while you never want to take something for granted, the drama was not so much do they qualify for state as it was who would win Regions.  Emma O’Connor had never lost a region championship in her high school career, so could South make it a 4-peat?  Or would Lambert repeat their performance from Coach Wood to take the title?

It was clear from the outset that the individual winner was going to be a 2-person race, as Gainesville’s Ashley Thompson and South’s Carmel Yonas almost immediately separated from the pack.  What also became obvious was the race for 3rd place was down to 2, with Izzy Yonas and Denmark’s Morgan Grace Sheffield going head to head.  We got to see the runners twice each of the three laps and nothing changed the first 5 times we saw them go by.  Thompson in the lead, Carmel right on her heels; slight break, then Sheffield comes by with Izzy matching her stride for stride.  Carmel and Thompson had only raced head to head once this season, with Carmel finishing one spot ahead at Asics, but Saturday belonged to Thompson as she managed to hold off Carmel down the final stretch, taking the region crown, with Carmel less than two seconds back.  

As we move to the race for third place, you need to understand some important context here.  Sheffield and Izzy know each other well, both having run middle school XC in the Great Strides program.  But last year, Morgan Grace was the clear #1 on that team and if you look at some 2019 race results, you’d see that, on average, she was ahead of Izzy by about a minute and a half in their 2-mile races, so the fact that Izzy is now breathing down her neck is a testament to just how good a season Izzy is having.  Alas, Morgan Grace was able to pull away in the end, taking 3rd, but Izzy’s consolation prize was 4th place and a spot on the All-Region 1st Team, so that’s pretty awesome.

So there’s 4 runners in and South with two of them, so starting off pretty well.  Meanwhile, over the first mile things are looking decent, with Emma O’Connor, Molly Hanlon, Janisha Patil & Siena Brennan together in their normal pack.  Besides that, Denmark had a couple in the top 10 with a good mix of Lambert and West runners as well.  The nerves went up a notch as they came around to the 2-mile.  Emma had dropped the rest of the South pack and was looking good but the rest had slid back several spots.  And it seemed, at least to my nervous mind, that Lambert had gained ground.  

As they headed out for the final time, evidenced by my still scratchy voice, I loudly encouraged South to go pick up spots that last lap.  Coming down the last stretch and making the turn to the finish, Emma was sitting in 9th, but an early kick from Lambert pushed her back to 10th.  However, Emma wasn’t done just yet and halfway to the finish, she launched a kick of her own and was able to take back 9th, besting Lambert by just 0.3 seconds.

Molly didn’t have her best stuff Saturday, but still managed to hold on in that last lap and looked like 16th was going to be where she landed as she made the final turn.  If you look at the pictures that were posted on Band, you can see that the next place (again Lambert) had probably a 10 yard lead on her as they headed down the final chute, then in the next pic she had closed some, but you wouldn’t be thinking “oh, yeah, she ran that person down.”  But, she did indeed find another gear and caught her at the line, taking 15th place, and like Emma, by a mere 0.3 seconds.

Janisha didn’t have any end of race drama, but did come in as South’s 5th runner, taking 19th.  Siena, just a few seconds behind Janisha, nabbed 22nd while also finishing ahead of both West and Denmark’s 5th runners.  Madi Butler, after 3 straight PR’s, came back to earth a bit finishing 41st.  

Lambert wound up putting their 5th in ahead of South’s, but on the strength of the Carmel/Izzy 1-2 punch and the gutsy finishes of Emma and Molly, South came out on top 49-56, earning that 4th consecutive region title.  Remember that as you head to state, ladies.  That jersey in front of you could be the difference between just running at state or getting a podium spot.  

In the JV girls race, Megan Milstead showed she’s learned a thing or two over her 4 years of cross-country and trusted her pace and ran her race, starting out mid-pack, but steadily moving up as the race wore on.  It paid off, as she raced all the way to 4th place, closing out her high school career with her highest finish ever.  Ansley Rogers followed, grabbing 10th place and also ending her career with her best XC finish.  Way to go Megan & Ansley!

Emily Barnes took the 3rd spot for South with her 12th place finish. Gigi Grady was the only South scorer to earn a PR, finishing 18th, with Shea Czajkoski rounding out the scoring in 20th as South took 3rd as a team.  Congrats also to Laila de Jong and Arushi Mishra who also managed to PR in this race.

Up Next - 7A State Championship

The Girls

Before we get to the race, let’s spend a few minutes talking about South this year.  Last year’s 2nd place state team had 5 of the 7 runners graduate (only Carmel and Emma remaining), so you knew this would be a new look team.  What wasn’t expected was a group of experienced rising seniors would choose not to run, leaving a big gap in depth.  With that background, it may not be a surprise that South heads into state with only 2 seniors to go with 3 sophomores and two freshmen making up the top 7, made even more impressive by the fact that in addition to the freshmen, 2 of the others are also in their first seasons of high school cross country.  But what is most awesome to see is how competitive they have become.  At the midpoint of the season, South was not even in Milesplit’s 7A top 10 rankings.  Then they went from unranked all the way to #2 and were sitting at #4 in last week’s rankings (I would venture to guess they’ll jump up a spot in the new rankings this week since it was Lambert that was at #3).

So that takes us to the state meet.  Hillgrove (defending champ) and Marietta (champs in 2017 & 2018) have alternated in the top spot all year, so they will be the favorites heading in.  South certainly is in the conversation.  The biggest question will be how does South handle the hills on the Carrollton course.  With some of the meet cancellations, South didn’t tackle any really tough courses this season but I know many of the girls feel like a hilly course will play to their strengths.  Last year South put 4 in the top 15 to take 2nd, but I’m not sure any team (maybe Marietta) has the depth to do that again.  So the key will be having Carmel and Izzy do what they do best and have the 3-7 runners work together as long as they can and just keep picking up points as others start to falter.  If they can do that, we will see South in a podium spot.

In terms of the individual title, if you look at last year, you’ll see 8 of the top 10 were seniors, so that leaves things much more wide open for this race.  In terms of fastest times, we watched the two fastest 7A runners at our region meet with our own Carmel and Thompson from Gainesville.  Hillgrove’s Ava Brooks and Marietta’s Betsy Gordon also have the talent to compete, as well as Makenna Calbert from Etowah.  It should be an exciting race.

The Boys

Like the girls, South boys come into state with only 2 runners (Nate and Sebastian) that have experience on the state stage.  They graduated 4 strong seniors (their #1, 3, 4 & 5 runners), but also lost some expected depth as injury or other factors left a number of rising seniors not running.  Nate has definitely taken a big step forward and is capably filling the #1 slot and a healthy Ben Bergey has given South a solid #2.  And in addition to Sebastian, fellow seniors Pujith and Devin have stepped up to help South remain competitive.  Finally, with Owen Wargo getting bit by the injury bug, I can’t say enough about senior (but first time XC runner) Sam Gullo and freshman Adam Zorko for adding much needed depth to the top 7.

The team title is no slam dunk for anyone.  While Denmark has remained atop the 7A rankings the past 3 weeks and certainly looked the part of a state champion at regions, Marietta, Norcross and Harrison all have a case to make, with a competitive runner at the top and solid depth throughout.  South has been ranked as high as 9th this season, but showed on Saturday they can rise to the occasion, so look for them to try to sneak into a higher spot at state.

Again like the girls, last year’s boys had 8 seniors in the top 10, with Marietta’s Kamari Miller and Lambert’s Cooper Bocko being the other two. Unlike the girls, this race is not wide open.  Bocko is injured and Miller is undefeated on the season.  He is the only 7A runner to break 15 minutes this year and his best time is 22 seconds faster then the next guy.  Miller should win this race!  Behind him you still have some great runners in Sully Shelton of Harrison, Miguel Schlicht from Norcross and Denmark’s Ethan Ashley.  Where it gets interesting for South fans is that just from a time standpoint, it has Nate at 17th.  Nate finished 21st last year and we know how much better he is this year.  Ethan Ashley is ranked 3rd going into this race and we just watched Nate hang with him for an entire race, so don’t be surprised to see Nate outperform the projections.

For those of you planning the trip down to Carrollton, the 11:00 a.m. start for the 7A races (11:45 for the girls) means you can sleep in a bit on November 7 and still make it down there in time.  But it is a solid hour and a half drive (you’ll be closer to Alabama than Atlanta) so give yourself plenty of time.  See you at State!