The Jackson River Sport Complex was filled with state champions Saturday.
And a group of Alleghany Mountaineers that have their collective eyes on a history-making title next month.
Parry McCluer’s boys and Hidden Valley’s girls won the team races and Glenvar’s Carly Wilkes smashed the course record in a six-team cross country meet hosted by Alleghany.
“It was a great day with great competition,” said Mountaineer coach Jeremy Bartley. “We ran very well considering the short season and the situation we are in with COVID and our training.”
Alleghany finished second in both boys and girls.
Because of COVID-19 mitigation strategies, the race had three teams compete in the morning and three in the afternoon.
Radford was scheduled to run, but the Bobcat sports programs have been shut down due to positive cases in the last week.
In boys competition, Alleghany ran in the morning and Parry McCluer competed in the afternoon.
“I didn’t want to pull Parry McCluer to the morning after Radford dropped out,” Bartley said of what would have been an interesting battle between the Blues and his Mountaineers, who have set a state championship goal in front of them. “I don’t think that would have been fair to Floyd County and James River in the afternoon pod. It would have been interesting if we would have raced alongside Parry McCluer. Sometimes you run at a different pace when someone is in front of you or someone is right behind you, rather than running in a big pack.”
The Blues/ Trevor Tomlin covered the course in 16:53 to win the boys individual title.
Tomlin is coming off state indoor titles in both the 1,600 and 3,200 meters, when he led Parry McCluer to the state team championship for the second year in a row.
Alleghany’s Erik Honaker and Levi Counts were fourth and fifth respectively, while Mason Honaker also had a top 10 with a seventh-place finish.
Wilkes was the story of the girls race.
The Glenvar junior, who owns four individual track state championships already to go with a team indoor track and team swim title, blistered the course in 17:49, 50 seconds faster than Emma Rogers’ (Hidden Valley) course record 18:39 set in the Region 3D meet in 2018.
“You could tell Carly was fully engaged in the race today,” Bartley said. “She was in sprint mode. It looked like she was running a mile or a two-mile. I knew she was going to come in with a great time.”
Macyn Cash was the first Alleghany finisher with a 22:14 eighth-place clocking.
Gracie Barron (11th), Abby Martin (13th) and Alivia Hoover (15th) also placed in the top 15.
Levi Bartley, a fourth-grader at Sharon Elementary, competed unattached and was the first finisher in the boys middle school race, while CMS 6th grader Faith Barron won the girls race.
Alleghany will be back to work on Wednesday at the Greenfield Recreation Center in a four-team meet with Lord Botetourt, William Fleming and Staunton River.
“Milestat (.com) predicts us to win the race, but we know you don’t win races on paper,” Bartley said. “It would be nice to get a win over Botetourt.
Everybody is dealing with the same stuff so all the times are a little slower.”
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