Independent School Preview

10k thoughts: The event took place at 10:45 pm in Beijing at the Bird's Nest (or as I call it Potemkin Village), which would be 10:45 this morning in North Carolina. I knew NBC wouldn't air it live, MSNBC had tennis on (Nadal wins again-I really don't like him), and USA had soccer. Online-no live video. So I couldn't watch it at all-bummer. So when I checked the online results I was shocked!! shocked to see the results. American Shalane Flanagan was third running a 30:22, Tirunesh Dibaba won the gold in a Olympic record time of 29:54. Do you know when the last time an American medaled in the Women's 10k? 1992-so this should have meant something to NBC or ESPN. But I think they were interviewing someone that knew Michael Phelps or ate breakfast next to him. This shows how far track has fallen in the Olympics. Flanagan ran an amazing time even though she had food poisoning earlier in the week.

For our Independent School Preview we have combined the 3A and 1A/2A preview. Since the independent schools don’t have a regional meet, were going to hold off on our picks on who will win what. In lieu we have placed our observations of a couple teams in each classification.

Men's Preview

Providence Day has won the last three state titles-it’s going to be tough for them to do it again. Durham Academy had their top 5 in before PD and return three All State runners. For PD they were saved in the state meet by Gerrick Hilliard last year, he ended up finishing third for them, and now as their top guy he has to lead the Chargers if they want to go for number four. The Chargers lost four seniors from their top 7 and are going to need their rising seniors to lead them.

Where are they now?: The old webmaster, Ben Hovis, is still coaching at Providence Day. He traveled the world this summer: Vermont, Australia as coach in the Down Under Games, and set a course record in a race in San Francisco. He also shaved his head over the summer, my opinion...I'm not a big fan of it, but I think Ben can pull it off.

Durham Academy looks to be the best team returning. Main reason: four guys returning who ran under 17 minutes last year. That’s going to put a lot of pressure on everyone else. Last year in the monsoon that was the state meet, they almost upset Providence Day. The scores indicate it was close, the placement of each team’s runner indicate it was close, but in the end Providence Day was able to slightly nudge ahead of Durham Academy. Thus year might be different are listed as the top team according to milesplit and during track they won two individual events the 800 and 3200, had a nice pack in the 1600, and ran away with the 4x800. The state track meet might be a harbinger of things to come.

Interesting fact #1: Only three teams have won the Men’s 3A State Title. They are Providence Day (2005-07), Asheville School (2004), and Cardinal Gibbons (1996-2003).

Cary Academy: another impressive team with three runners returning who ran under 17 minutes. Depending on how their other runners do they can be a contender for the top spot in the state meet.

Interesting fact #2: If Durham Academy wins it will be their first state title in cross country since 1995, when they won 13 in a row.

Charlotte Country Day is lead by the rising sophomore Scott Foy, who ran well in cross country and track. The improvements that he showed in track (being the state champion in the 1600)-can he be a challenger for the individual title in cross? The Buccaneers are an improved team and might be able to scare Providence Day in the conference.

Fayetteville Academy, who won the 1A/2A state title is lead by Jackson Ferrell who has the fastest returning time with a 16:20, the Eagles once again seem to be the top dog in this classification. Can Ferrell improve on his individual runner up status?

Another team from Fayetteville-this time Fayetteville Christian School could challenge their cross town rivals. They have a solid top three, and if they can find a 4 and 5 runner than see if they make some noise.

Women's Preview

To go into detail about the reigning Women’s 3A champion, we got some information from a secret source. Our independent school source tells us that Charlotte Latin has a new runner who was a state champion from one of the Gulf States. Our source didn’t know which state she was from (our source expects us to do the legwork), Louisiana or Mississippi, but heard she was an individual state champion. Also my source reported that Latin might have in their services a 12:20 3200 runner from track, who got hurt in the spring. That being said Latin looks to be strong again and if our source is right these runners will be a nice addition to their team. Latin really surprised a lot of people in being so strong and dominate the question that NCRunner’s wants to ask: Is Latin still hungry? We’ve been told they’ve had a fantastic summer so that might be a partial answer, we will know more throughout the season. That being said after winning their first title in Women’s Cross Country, the young squad at Latin might be laying the groundwork for a dynasty.

Random track observation: Charlotte Latin’s track is probably one of the nicest tracks in the state. A nice 8 lane track-the lanes are cushy and springy. Mooresville’s track is a close second, but Latin’s track is amazing. Since the school I coach at doesn’t have a track, I get some track envy whenever I go to a nice one.

Forsyth County Day finished as the runner up last year and has the top team returning according to the milesplit rankings. What works in their favor? Their depth-they had their entire top 7 in before Latin’s at the state meet. A slight problem that we see is that they need someone who is ready to accept the challenge of running with the lead pack. They had 1 All State runner in Elizabeth Lang-she returns, and if she can get a top 5 finish then their depth might work in their favor.

Providence Day’s 1 through 5 spread according to milesplit is 2 minutes 31 seconds. An improvement on that time is needed if they want to improve on their 5th place finish from a year ago. Competing in the same conference with Latin will get them ready to run against some good competition-their senior leader Haley Holway is the second fastest returning runner behind Andrianne Soo-look for some fast times from Haley this year. Mid 18’s? That might happen.

A new school to the CISAA, Cannon, might be able to mix it up with PD. The CISAA will probably have three out of the top four teams in the state-clearly making it the best conference in the independent schools. Cannon has a relatively young team and because of that you never know what to expect. But expect them to be in the mix of things.

For 1A/2A Fayetteville Academy won over Caldwell Academy by 28 points. This year Caldwell looks to be the better team on paper, and might be able to leap frog Fayetteville to the top spot in the state. Also lurking is Asheville Christian Academy and Village ChristianAcademy. Asheville was ahead of Village by three points for third place, and both teams return enough to maybe challenge for second place.