Forsyth Country Day Win A Tight 3A Battle By 6 Points

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NCISAA Boys Team Merge

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The most exciting team battle of the NCISAA State Championships yesterday certainly was between Forsyth Country Day and Coastal Christian.

The two faced off earlier this season only once at Hare & Hounds where Coastal Christian came out ahead by nearly 180 points, though the Furies were shorthanded missing a few of their top 7.

With a 100% FCDS squad the battle between the two programs was expected to be extremely close.  It certainly did not disappoint with both squads rising to the occasion.

As the race got going the field had a group of five athletes break away from the field relatively early on.  Harrison Oswald (Carolina Day), Reece Collie (ACA), Isaiah Arnold (Coastal Christian), Zach Moore (FCDS) and Nicholas Scrocco (Coastal Christian) were among the lead group.  

With two Coastal Christian in the top 5 and one FCDS followed by Will Gray and Will Scott of FCDS in the front of the lead group the battle was as close as expected.

As the athletes reached the lake Oswald, Arnold and Scrocco slowly began to make the lead group of five down to three as Collie and Moore began to fall off the pace.  Arnold would then start pushing the pace over the last mile.  An unexpected leader at this point in the race against a deep 3A field.

FCDS still were ahead of Coastal through 3 runners, but Coastal looked to have their 5th runner ahead of the Furies 5th.  The team battle would come down to the last mile.

Arnold would began to slowly distance himself from Oswald and teammate Scrocco as they'd finish in that order.  Arnold was ranked 6th in the field coming into the race and hoped to stay with the leaders as long as possible.  He ran 1:58.36 and 4:39 on the track last year as a freshman, and is now a state champion in his first ever cross country season.  He would run a 10 second PR of 16:16 for the win.

The top five would trickle in all under 17 minutes in the order of Oswald, Scrocco, Moore and Collie.  FCDS teammates Will Gray and Will Scott would work together to finish 6th and 7th side by side.  Vince Bottiglier would place 12 to finish at Coastal Christian's 3rd man.

Just behind Bottiglier would be FCDS freshman Sam Scott placing 14th.  Coastal's 4th Nicholas McConnell would finish 17th.  Carter Sullivan of FCDS would finish 5th for the Furies in 18th ahead of Coastal's 5th Caleb Fargo who finished 22nd.

Sullivan had a big last mile moving up at least 5 spots earning crucial points in the team battle.

Despite Coastal finishing 1-3, Forsyth Country Day were able to win our in their 3-4-5.  They'd win the close team battle 49 to 55.  Despite a loss for Coastal, it's the best finish in the program's history and they'll return four of their top 5 from this years team.  The team certainly ran better than they were even projected coming into the meet.

Like Coastal, the Furies will only graduate Zach Moore as this NCISAA 3A rivalry will look to go on for a few more years.