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Boys Championship
In a highly anticipated matchup between David Melville (Northern Guilford) and Ian Shanklin (Page) in the rain and mud it was Melville who took the lead early on. Shanklin, Micah Pratt (Patriot Pacers) and Nathan Gamble (Leesville Road) sat just behind him. Melville felt the pace wasn't going quick enough early on so began to push the pace and pull away from the lead group.
As they approached the 2 Mile mark Melville had a commanding lead over the talented field and looked to win with ease. Pratt had moved into 2nd ahead of Shanklin and Gamble who sat side by side running through the flooded grass by the baseball field. In what looked to be a dominating race by Melville started to be a question over the last mile and Pratt was making up a lot of ground. But Melville's early lead proved to be too much for Pratt to make up as Melville ran 16:20 with Pratt just behind in 16:24. Gamble pulled away from Shanklin to take 3rd in 16:41. Shanklin held off a late charging Luke Bennett (Voyager Academy) to hold on to 4th in 16:48 with Bennett at 16:49.
Green Hope boys dominated the team battle and didn't seem to be going all out. Their top 5 looked to pack it up through the first two miles and put together a hard last mile to move up a lost of spots. They scored 56 points going 5-7-13-14-17 with their top 5 boys. Leesville Road boys fared well in the bad weather to take 2nd place with 115 points over Page and Patriot Pacers (VA).
Girls Championship
Early on in this race a group of 6 girls established themselves at the front of the pack. Emme Fisher (West Carteret), Isabel Zimmermann (Reagan), Melissa Zammitti (Davidson Day), Sophia Jantomaso (Patriot Pacers, VA), Calli Parlier (Apex) and Sophie Faircloth (Reagan) all sat together through the mile mark.
As they took the horseshoe loop for the 2nd time, the group was narrowed down to 4 as Parlier and Fisher fell back a bit. In the second group behind them was the top 7 girls from Green Hope who seemed to have taken it out easy through the initial stages of the race. Jantomaso began to pull ahead of Zimmermann and Zammitti, but her lead was not substantial enough for it to be all said and done just yet. Zammitti is known for hard second halves of the race this season and could not be counted out. She put some ground on Zimmermann over the last mile, but Jantomaso had too much left in the tank and outlasted the two girls. Jantomaso's time was 19:11 with Zammitti in 2nd at 19:16 followed by Zimmermann in 3rd in 19:21.
Faircloth was able to hold on for 4th with Parlier making ground up on her late. They finished at 19:50 and 19:51 respectively. Green Hope's girls were making up ground on Fisher over the last mile, but were not able to reel in Fisher who took 6th in 19:56.
Green Hope walked away with the team title placing their top 5 in the top 15. They scored 41 points and had 6 girls in before any other team had 4 in. Patriot Pacers had 5 girls in the top 20 to take 2nd place over Reagan and Apex with 56 points. Reagan had 3 girls in the top 10, but their 3-4 gap hurt them in the team scores as they took 3rd with 65 points.