The Phoenix was a mystery coming into the meet and an underdog in both races, but it was the girls' results that were the most surprising.
The North Central Athletic Conference Championship (NCAC for short) was our featured meet of conference meet week, and it brought some mystery along with it. To be specific, we only had two small meets' worth of data on Raleigh Charter, so we didn't really know how strong the Phoenix would be. Results from recent years suggested they would be formidable, but NCRunners had no way of knowing just how true that would be...
More NCAC Championship Coverage
Boys' Race Recap
Madison Daniel (Research Triangle) was the pre-meet favorite, but Luke Bennett (Voyager Academy) seemed determined to build on the breakout race he had at the NCRunners Elite Invitational two weekends ago. The two dueled up front for most of the race before Bennett was able to pull away for an 11-second win. As they have all season, Research Triangle had three guys near the front: Daniel was joined by Jack Puryear (3rd) and Michal Swepson (5th). Unfortunately for the Raptors, it wasn't enough to hold off the depth of Raleigh Charter. Led by sophomore Thomas Moore in 4th place, the Phoenix put 4 in the top 10 and all 5 scorers in the top 13 to take home the team title. That makes three different winning boys' teams in the three years the NCAC has existed! How's that for a competitive conference?
Girls' Race Recap
As volatile as the boys' results have been in the last three years of this meet, the girls' outcome has been very consistent: two years, two Franklin Academy team titles, two Hannah Zenker individual wins. Early in the race, it looked like that was the looming outcome once again - but things began to change in the third mile, when Gillian Scott and her Raleigh Charter teammates began to rise. Scott had closed on Zenker in the middle mile, then the freshman pushed past the senior and ultimately pulled away for a 17-second advantage at the finish. Her teammates did the same further back in the race, putting 5 more Phoenix runners between 7th and 16th to wrest the trophy away from the Patriots. There were 2 seniors in the Raleigh Charter top 7 for this meet, but the rest were entirely 9th- and 10th-graders, so watch out for this team as a 1A contender the next few years!