South earned their fall break with some great performances at the Southern Showcase on Saturday.  Coach Shaw sent a nice update on Band summing up things pretty well, so I’m going to take advantage of that and be brief here and get my fall break started.

If my counting was correct, there were more South spectators (28) than runners (20), so shout out to the families that made the drive over to Alabama.  They were rewarded with some spectacular racing.

The Girls

There have been some good individuals that the girls have run against so far this year, but nothing like the caliber of this field.  South was fortunate to have 5 girls hit the cutoff times for the race.  From my standpoint, there was never a question whether our ladies were overmatched, and Carmel & Izzy reinforced that from the start, sitting maybe around 30 nearing the first mile, but both steadily moved up throughout leading to their final spots of 15th & 20th, with a nice PR as Izzy broke the nineteen minute barrier.  

It is crazy to imagine that it was a freshman (Abby Grace Cheeseman from TN) that took down everyone to take the individual title.  But even crazier to believe that the team champion (Brentwood from TN) put their top 5 in 10th, 11th, 12th, 14th & 28th to easily top all other teams.  And even more nuts to hear that they had 3 freshmen in that top 5.

Caroline Turner & Janisha Patil both had great efforts as well, finishing 105th & 111th. Molly Hanlon finished the scoring in 204th as South took 12th place out of the 31 teams in the championship race.

The girls had only 3 girls in the Blue race, so no team score for South, but Pragna, Emily & Madeline all scored season’s best times.  

The Boys

It’s always hard to gauge how fast they are going off the line but I did hustle over to the mile mark to see the leaders come through in 4:30.  And while that pace is way too fast for me, it wasn’t long before Nate Verska came through (4:47) with Ben Bergey just behind.  I forgot to check my watch at the 2-mile (too busy yelling), but based on the final winning time, the leaders hadn’t slowed much.  Ben had overtaken Nate, but both were looking very strong.  Ben Winn was moving up as well.  

The winner, Sam Rich from SC, closed strong as his 14:38 is the fastest HS 5k this year. And while Ben Bergey may not have been able to hang with him, he continued to move up, snagging a nice PR with his 11th place finish, with Nate taking 22nd and a PR of his own.  Ben Winn may have wound up 135th, but he was the 7th freshman to finish and he netted the biggest improvement in his time, taking 30 seconds off his PR to break 17 minutes for the first time.

The rest of the boys were in the Blue race, with 6 of the 9 runners notching PR’s.  Props to Harris Garmon for leading the way for South and special shoutout to Grant Gibson, who had the biggest improvement on the day, taking 53 seconds off his PR.

I think it’s safe to say everyone enjoyed this meet and course and think the trip and overnight were a good bonding experience for the team.

South is firmly in the “fast” phase of the schedule, as Oct. 2 will bring another fast course with incredible competition.  There are already 150 teams signed up for this race, which will be split up across 16 races throughout the day.  This meet will also feature a men’s & women’s college race for the first time.

It will probably not be until that week that we’ll get word on which races South will be entered in.  But with the drive to Fairburn, it’s safe to bet on another early bus ride.

For those not familiar with the Chattahoochee Hills Eventing site where this meet takes place, it is probably better known as the site of some famous Marvel movie filming.  The field where the race takes place is also known as Wakanda, the homeland of Black Panther.  And back in the woods the runners can spot Tony Stark’s cabin from the final Avengers movie across the lake.  It is a beautiful place just to see even without the great racing, so make the drive down to Fairburn.