Each Thursday we'll feature Future Stars who are sophomore year or younger including middle school. We'll look at recent performances and give some insight to their running careers thus far dating back to middle school if we have that information. This week we feature two sophomores who threw down some major performances this week at their conference championships!
Alaina Zabel (Myers Park)
Samuel Cowell (Apex Friendship)
As a freshman Samuel Cowell had a strong year running 16:15 at Regionals at WakeMed for his seasons best and then 16:24 at the NCHSAA XC State Championships to place 33rd overall. He had a great track season as well running 2:04.93, 4:34.68 and 9:42 for 800m, 1600m and 3200m respectively. This fall Cowell has shown great improvement opening his season with a 16:14 personal best, dropping under 16 minutes twice with a 15:56 at adidas and 15:58 at Great American. Tuesday, Cowell threw down a runner-up performance at the SWAC XC Championships running a 15:29 narrowly losing to Holly Springs Brandon Williams. His mark ranks him 18th across all of North Carolina and moves him into the lead for the fastest sophomore in North Carolina.