HENDERSONVILLE -- Everyone, including Chapel Hill High School coach Ron Olsen, expected a close race last weekend in the North Carolina mountains.
The annual WNC Cross-Country Carnival traditionally attracts upwards of 1,000 talented, young runners, looking for some regional an even national recognition, and maybe even to escape the sweltering temperatures that settled over lower parts of the state.
Last year\'s race was one in which Chapel Hill\'s Jack Bolas burst onto the scene by lopping 11 full seconds off the Jackson Park course record, covering the 3.04 miles in 15:29.9.
And Saturday\'s Carnival had the usual teams, familiar faces at the state championships in the fall -- such as Charlotte Catholic, Providence, Cardinal Gibbons, Hickory and host T.C. Roberson.
But, in the end, Chapel Hill runners were even more impressive as a team than they were in 2005, when Bolas led the boys to first place and the CHHS girls took fourth.
This time, CHHS ran away with both championships and both invitational titles, and by fairly large margins. East Chapel Hill\'s girls finished ninth and the Wildcat boys were 10th.
\"The kids raced very well today,\" Olsen wrote in typical understatement in an e-mail to parents and other supporters.
Led by sophomore Taylor Gilland\'s runner-up individual finish (at 16:07.94), the CHHS boys placed all five scoring runners in the top 20 of the championship race and had a team total of just 54 points. Miles Rampel was eighth (16:23.06), with Peter Anderson 13th (16:47.68), Jack Marshall 15th (16:59.45) and Kent Pecora 16th (17:00.27). Just for good measure, Taylor Muir came in 19th (17:06.76), and Wes Sutter, a ninth-grader in his first race as a Tigers, ran an 18:09 for 62nd.
Myers Park was far back in second among the 23 boys teams (with 144 points ) and just ahead of T.C. Roberson in third (146), followed by Cardinal Gibbons (168) and Charlotte Catholic (218).
Ryan Hill, a junior from Hickory, won the individual boys title in (15:52.47).
CHHS sophomore Kristina Witcher (seventh, (20:01.79) and senior Becky Johnson (ninth, 20:04.59) led the Chapel Hill girls to their team total of 59 points. T.C. Roberson came in second with 106 points.
\"I really thought it\'d be a bit of a dogfight at the top and wasn\'t real sure where we\'d be,\" Olsen said. \"So much for being close.\"
The rest of the field was much tighter.
Green Hope\'s strong squad (147 points), led by top-20 finishes from Felicity Brower and Shannon Cox, barely edged into third ahead of rival Cardinal Gibbons (149). Charlotte Catholic was fifth with 158 points.
The CHHS girls were just as tightly packed. Beth Wollman (20:13) was 13th, Adrienne Wollman (20:20) 14th, Madison Stark (20:22) 16th, Lindsay Clendaniel (21:19) 40th and Molly Spencer (21:24) 42nd. As Olsen noted, only 21 seconds separated the top five CHHS runners.
Most of East Chapel Hill\'s runners finished in the top 100 of their respective Championship 5Ks, including all the Wildcat girls. Sophomore Elsbeth Grant was 20th (20:45.27) and Lea Calderon-Guthe 28th (20:55.92). Jane Williams took 63rd, Caitie Safrit 69th, I-Wah Chang 70th and ninth-grader Maddie Garcia-Johnson 96th.
Top East Chapel Hill boys were Ben Jones (in 45th), ninth-grader Karsten Bench and Alex Safrit, ninth-grader David Calderon-Guthe, Trexel Xing and Gary Stevenson.
The CHHS girls were even more dominant in winning the Invitational 5K, a separate race held for smaller schools and bigger varsities that can split their squads. Anna Adams (second), ninth-grader Meg Duffy (fifth), Emily Adams (seventh) and sophomore Emily Hamilton (ninth) all finished in the top-10 behind girls winner Gaddy Jordan, a senior from Enka. Natalie Archer (27th), sophomore Amy Rella (33rd) and Emily Patterson (61st) all finished well for CHHS.
Sophomore Alex Marcheschi (in sixth place) led the Chapel Hill boys in their Invitational, followed by Taylor Dillon (14th), ninth-grader Scott Sutter (16th), Otis Reid (17th), ninth-grader Christian Johnson (24th), junior Match Dutoit (29th) and Ricky Serrano (64th).
Ninth-grader Mason Gardner (44th) paced the East Chapel Hill boys in the Invitational, followed by teammates Zach Gilbert, sophomore Tyler Bench, Davis Stevenson, sophomore,William Laundon and Sam Savitz.
East Chapel Hill underclassmen Dakota Sharps and ninth-grader Aaron Strom ran in the Open 5k, and both recorded top-25 finishes.