I know Coach Shaw likes to tell the runners to take Milesplit with a grain of salt, so thought it would be fun to look at what Milesplit thought heading into the meet.  For the boys, it was South in 12th with 314 points and the girls they had in 5th with 157 points.  Score one for Coach Shaw, as South outperformed both of those predictions.

The Boys

As the boys race got underway, Marietta’s Kamari Miller left no doubt of his intentions as he leapt out to a 12-second lead in the first 1000 meters.  Nate Verska was exercising his normal patient strategy in a pack sitting 15th-20th as they headed out for the loop in the woods.  Ben Bergey was running 2nd for South sitting around 50th, with the pack of Pujith Veeravelli, Sebastian Elisan, Sam Gullo and Devin Schmuckal sitting just 10 seconds behind, though there were close to 50 runners in that gap.

As they came around to close out the first lap, Miller had further opened up his lead and the 2-4 spots were well spread out, followed by a cluster of 7 runners that included Nate.  The gap between Nate and Ben had widened, but Ben was holding firm in the 50’s, while Sebastian, Pujith, Sam & Devin were starting to string out in a group between 90th-100th.  All in all, not necessarily the positions you wanted to see them in at the finish.

As Kamari Miller came across the road for the final hill and then the cruise down to the finish line, the only question was whether he would set a new course record.  Unsurprisingly, the answer was of course he did, with an unbelievable 15:29 and a 38-second victory.  Harrison’s Sully Shelton was 2nd, but the team battle never got any closer, with Marietta handily taking the team title 99-116 over Harrison.  And a shout out to our Forsyth neighbor Denmark for their 4th place finish.

Back to South, Nate continued to battle it out over the final lap and he made the final turn sitting in 10th, but wasn’t satisfied with that and managed a final burst to take over 9th place by five one-hundredths of a second.  Way to fight for every spot Nate.  Ben stayed steady over that last lap and managed to take 50th in his first state meet.

Meanwhile, Pujith and Sebastian had both made big moves over the last lap and closed strong in 66th and 68th, respectively.  Sam was less than 10 seconds back with his 85th place finish.  Devin landed in 107th and Adam Zorko finished 151st, a position that was 9th among all freshmen in this race but more importantly gained him some valuable experience that will serve him well in the years to come.

All that added up to a 9th place team finish for the guys.  Better than predicted, but probably not as high as they wanted.  But this is the 5th straight year that the boys have scored a top 10 team finish, so way to keep that streak alive.

The Girls

I’ll save the suspense, since unless you’ve been hiding in a hole for the past several days, you are well aware that Carmel Yonas is the 2020 7A XC Champion!  If you had the good fortune of being in Carrollton, you got to witness what I can only describe as the execution of a perfect race strategy.  

A pack of 10 emerged out of the start and as they came around the middle school the first time, heading out to the 2nd part of lap #1, Carmel hadn’t worried about going out with them, looking comfortable sitting about 10 yards back.  It didn’t take long for the pack to break up and over the rest of lap 1, Carmel picked off nearly everyone, sitting in 3rd, with Ashley Thompson of Gainesville in the lead and Walton’s Sarah Burwell in 2nd.  

If you watch the video of the race on Milesplit, as they are coming down the hill to head out for the second lap, you can hear what I can only guess is Gainesville’s coach wisely telling Thompson “Don’t let Yonas come back!”  Unfortunately for her, Thompson didn’t have a say in that.  By the time we saw them again, Carmel had passed Burwell and closed the gap on Thompson.  But before you could even think “is she going to sit on her shoulder like she did at Regions,” Carmel just kept rolling and as they headed down the hill for the last loop, Carmel took over the lead.  

In the meantime, what was going on behind the leaders?  Izzy Yonas got out pretty well and was sitting around 20th at the 1k mark and had nicely moved up to 15th by the end of the first lap.  The rest of the ladies appeared to get boxed in coming off  the start, but Emma O’Connor’s experience was showing, as she was a bit more successful starting to move through the pack and was right around 60th going out for lap #2.   Siena Brennan, Janisha Patil & Molly Hanlon were together in a group that covered roughly spots 75-85 as they completed lap #1.  

As Carmel came back into view, crossing the road with 300 meters to go, it was clear there would be no finish line drama as Ashley was nowhere in sight.  And it was awesome to hear the crowd erupt as Carmel came down the final hill and turned for the finish, closing out an impressive 17-second victory.  Interesting side note, since the 7A class was established in 2016, a senior has won this race every year, so Carmel made a bit of history by taking the title as a sophomore.

Izzy, meanwhile, didn’t mess around on her second lap either and she closed out a very successful freshman season earning all-state honors with her 9th place finish.  Emma had a strong last lap, passing 20 runners, including one right at the line, to take 40th.  And South was going to need every spot they could get.  That’s why it was so good to see Siena’s extremely strong finish.  I’m not sure at what point she pulled away from Janisha and Molly, but she was flying down the final hill, blowing by several runners on her way to 63rd.  Janisha came in 11 seconds later in 72nd to close out the scoring for South, with Molly hanging on for 80th.  

So where did that leave South as a team?  Well, in the last newsletter I mentioned that Marietta likely had the most depth and they showed it on Saturday.  While they did not have anyone in the top 10, their first four runners went 12th, 14th, 16th & 18th and their 5th came in 33rd, enough to secure the team title over Hillgrove, who put two runners in before Marietta’s 1st but didn’t have enough depth to hold them off.  South was 83 points in back of Hillgrove, but managed to take 3rd by 2 points over Harrison.

 Gee, you might be thinking, what about Madi Butler?  Of course I couldn’t forget Madi.  She had a fine race at State and was the only South runner to actually record a faster time than at Region as she finished 7th for South in 139th place.  And for some perspective (mainly about how deep South is), looking across the 30 7A teams that competed at State, Made would have been the #1 runner on 3 of the teams and would have scored (top 5) for 12 of the teams.  Nice job!

Before I close, one final comment on Emma O’Connor as she finishes up her high school cross country career.  Emma may not have gotten some of the accolades that come with being a team’s #1 runner, but she was a great leader to this young team and has been a remarkable competitor over the past 4 years.  In fact I looked back over the South classes of 2019 & 2020, a group that features 4 runners that ran at the state meet every year they were at South and all 4 that have gone on to run in Division 1 college programs.  And includes last year’s state champion.  But guess what?  If you look at the average finish place at State over each of their careers, Emma’s is higher than all of them.  Now that’s impressive!

Looking Ahead

The guys are, like last year, graduating a lot of depth, not just the 3-6 of Pujith, Sebastian, Devin & Sam, but several others in the spots just behind them.  They’ll still have the top covered with Nate and Ben, but will be looking for health from someone like Owen Wargo and continued improvement from the underclassmen to keep South competitive.  Marietta is only losing 2 of their top 7, while Harrison is graduating 3 and Denmark will bring back the majority of their core, so expect 7A to be really strong yet again.   At the individual state level, 7 of the top 10 were seniors, so there will be plenty of room for someone new to step up to lead 7A.

For the ladies, I have raved all season about the awesome young core, so with only Emma and Madi from the top 7 moving on, South should remain competitive for years to come.  But with a defending state champion and emergence of the underclassmen, it is not likely they’ll be able to enjoy another year under the radar.  And while Marietta is losing 3 of their top 5, Hillgrove brings back all 5, and several of the teams just behind South also return most of their core, so a state title is not going to get any easier.  On the individual side, it is the opposite picture from the guys.  Only 2 seniors finished in the top 12, with the top 4 spots all coming back next year, so 2021 should bring a very competitive season, but I’m confident South is up for it.

Back in August, many of us never would have guessed that we’d have the season, so thankful that we were able to make it through state and have the runners all stay safe.  So until next fall, that’s a wrap!