As 2016 draws to a close, Thunder Radio Sports looks back at some of the highlights of the calendar year for each of the 12 prep sports. Today we look back at a highlight from the prep cross country teams. The Westwood Middle School cross country teams had another phenomenal year in their 3rd year of existence as both boys and girls teams swept most of the local meets in which they competed. One such sweep occurred on September 20th in the season ending meet at Fayetteville where both Rockets teams were dominant.
Thunder Radio reported on their success with the following story we published on September 22nd
The Westwood Rocket and Lady Rocket cross country teams competed in a match at Fayetteville on Tuesday at Fayetteville’s Don Davidson Park. The Rockets and Lady Rockets each won team titles on the day. The Lady Rockets finished 1st out of a field of 5 teams while the Rockets were 1st out of 6 teams.
For the Lady Rockets, Patricia Barrera was the top finisher for Westwood as she took 4th place out of a field of 44 runners in a time of 11:45. Sunshine Mai was 13th, Lizabeth Martinez was 14th, Alaya Barnes was 16th, Elizabeth Brown was 17th, Zoe Mills came in 20th and Kennedy Norman-Young was 21st.
For the Rockets, Bradey Nugent was the 4th place finisher in the boys race that had a field of 72 runners. Nugent, who finished in a time of 10:47, finished just ahead of 4 teammates. Louie Frazier was 5th, Bodey Todd was 6th, Jack Beachboard was 7th, Lukas Workman was 9th, John Dobson was 13th and Wyatt Nugent finished in 22nd place.
The Fayetteville race closed out another successful season for the Westwood runners. Coach Jim Dobson will be a guest on Saturday’s Coffee Coaches Show to talk about the season.
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The Coffee County Central High School and Coffee County Middle School teams both had improved seasons under new head coach Nathan Wanuch. The middle school team showed improved numbers and had 1st place finishers in both boys and girls divisions in late September at Arrowhead Ranch. The high school team had their strongest showing since the sport was renewed 3 years ago after a 25+ year hiatus.
Thunder Radio reported on their success with the following story we also published on September 22nd
The Coffee County Central High and Middle School cross country teams traveled to Normandy on Tuesday to take part in a meet on the hilly Arrowhead Ranch course.
The Red Raiders remained perfect on the season as they outdistanced second place Warren County by 5 points. James Lynn was the overall top finisher as he won the boys race. Bradley Kishbaugh was 4th, Andrew Godwin was 5th, Andres Cavalie was 6th, Reuben Chaput was 16th, Larson Meltzer was 30th and Neil Slone came in at 37th place.
The Lady Raiders had a respectable showing in spite of having several runners missing. Official team results and times have not been released for the meet as of yet but Sarah Pearson finished in 2nd place as the top Coffee County runner. Emily St. John was 5th, Byanka Woods finished 20th, Jasmine Farrar was 31st, Kelsey Selvage was 33rd and Keisheal Norton was 35th.
The CCMS runners had the best showing of the year as Raider runners won both the boys and girls races. For the Red Raiders, Ethan Welch finished first followed by Jacob Rutledge in 2nd and Jaylen Selvage in 7th place. For the Lady Raiders, Shelby Watkins was the first place runner followed by Jasie Willis in 2nd place.
The CHS thinclads are back in action on Friday when they travel to St. Andrew’s-Sewanee for the Mountain Lion Invitational meet.
We continue our year in review on Monday as we celebrate the year in wrestling.
