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The Davie cross country teams ventured back to Kernersville’s Ivey Redmon Park Oct. 20 for the Central Piedmont Conference championships. The Davie boys turned in their best performance in years as they raced to a third-place finish. The Lady War Eagles placed fifth among the eight teams.
The Mt. Tabor boys showed why they are the top-ranked team in the state and 25th nationally as they dominated from the start. Their team score of 16 points was only one more than a perfect score, and the Spartans grabbed eight of the top nine individual places. Reagan secured the runner-up spot with 59 points, while Davie was third with 83. West Forsyth (104) and Reynolds (140) rounded out the top five. It marked the first time in many years that Davie defeated West and Reynolds at the conference meet. A total of 115 runners completed the 5k course in the boys’ race, while the girls’ race featured 74 finishers.
Tabor also claimed the girls’ title in a thrilling race as they tallied 43 points. West Forsyth (53), Reagan (55), Reynolds (75) and Davie (148) rounded out the top five.
Spartan senior Douglas Gledhill cruised to the boys’ individual title with a time of 16:17 as he edged teammate Will Soule by less than a second. Reagan sophomore Bronwyn Parks (18:36) sprinted to a three-second win over Reynolds sophomore Chandler Parks to claim the girls’ title.
Davie was led by Andrew Brown, who turned in an all-conference performance with his 11th-place finish as his time of 16:56 marked the first time the Davie senior had broken the 17:00 barrier. Reece Yount continued his remarkable senior campaign as he slashed another 15 seconds off his previous fastest time. His mark of 17:18 was good for 18th place. Cole Swade also turned in a personal record time of 17:35 as he crossed the line in 20th. Owen Sulecki was 22nd in 17:47 and Tyler Hill was 25th in 17:53. Caleb Young returned to the lineup for the first time in over a month as he recovered from injury. Young finished 28th in 18:04. Freshman Thomas Essic was 30th in 18:08.
The Davie girls were led by junior standout Riley Almond, who took 26th in 21:37. Gracie Spicer was next across the line for the War Eagles as she claimed 30th in 22:27. The three remaining Davie scorers all turned in personal best times. Logan White was 40th in 23:42, Raelynn Lankford 48th in 24:34 and Isabel Kittleson 52nd in 24:47.
“Our guys performed at a high level,” said coach Rob Raisbeck. “Our top three – Andrew, Reece and Cole – all ran PRs. Caleb ran faster than I honestly thought he could after missing almost a month of training. Owen was solid as usual and Tyler and Thomas finished among the top four freshmen in the conference. We also had a bunch of PRs from our other freshmen. Aric Boles and Noah Shore, in particular, ran very well.
“The girls’ race was a bit of an adventure. All five of our finishers ran well and we got three PRs from Logan, Raelynn and Isabel. Unfortunately we had three other girls who all got sick on race day, though, it did not affect our place in the team standings.”
Next up for the War Eagle harriers is the Midwest 4-A Regional at Ivey Redmon on Oct. 30. The boys will race at 10 a.m., while the girls will follow at 10:30.
“Realignment has presented quite a challenge for us,” said Raisbeck. “There are 29 teams in our region and the Midwest is by far the toughest. Tabor, Weddington and Lake Norman are the top three teams in the state and all are in our region. On paper, we are the 10th best boys’ team in the region, but we believe we are better than two of those teams. We expect seven teams to advance to states, so we are going to have to beat somebody we aren’t supposed to. But Jeff (Jones) and I like the way our team is peaking right now and I think we have a real chance to surprise some people. Our girls should come in around 16th or so and our goal for them is to keep getting faster. We have a young girls’ squad and are looking forward to watching their continued improvement.”