Key Losses
Key Returners
2015 End of Season Rank - 22nd
2016 Preseason Rank based off 2015 times - 9th
2015 Regional Finish - 7th
Holly Springs is a distance program that has been on the rise for the past few years. This year the Golden Hawks look to make their mark on North Carolina cross country. Gavin Kinkead was the top runner for the 2015 season, but sustained an illness that kept him out of both track seasons. His coach has told us the Kinkead has returned as strong as every over this summers training as he heads into his senior season. Kinkead holds PRs of 4:34, and 16:11 and should be the leader of this Holly Springs team assuming he is as healthy as indicated.
Where Holly Springs is strong is their gap from their 2nd through 6th runner that holds a spread of just 33 seconds, and 20 seconds from their 2 through 5. Bradley Howard, Ryan O'Hare, and Jevon Neal will look to take charge of this group. Jaden Morrow had a strong track season over the short distance 800 where he lead the team running 2:04. He chopped a lot of time off from his freshman season, almost 10 seconds, and could head into the XC season with a new found confidence in himself. The team competition will drive them all to run faster and they should have at least 6 runners under 17 this year.
After the 6 Holly Spring's depth drops off a little. They have a lot of runners in the mid 18s, but will need some of them to have a break out season to be able to cut into the solid top 5 they already return. When you look Ryan O'Hare's performances he is one that I think could really break out this season. Last cross country season he stared off running 19:03 and cut his time down to 17:23. As a freshman on the track he ran 4:52 for 1600. With a full year of running under his belt he returns much more experienced and will head into the season with a much different midset and goals. Last year he hoped to crack the top 7, but this year his expectations will be much higher. Unfortunately for Holly Springs they could finish as a top 10 team and fail to make the regional meet due to the brutality of the 4A Mideast Region. They return as the 5th best team in the region, and it looks to be a really tight race between the 3rd through 8th teams in the region.