7 runners compete at Haskell meet
By Sam Waller
The Albany cross country program made its second outing of the season Wednesday, Aug. 30, with seven runners competing at Haskell.
The next meet will be Wednesday, Sept. 13 at Hawley.
At Haskell, Albany runners competed well with 136 competitors in the varsity girls race and 117 in the varsity boys race.
“This course was a challenge compared to our last race at Jim Ned, and they were able to stay within a close time range with the challenge,” coach Lauren Peacock said.
In the varsity girls race, Ashlyn Miller finished 20th individually with a time of 15 minutes, 24 seconds over 3,200 meters. Sidney Russell was 36th in 16:05, with Callan Edgar 38th a second behind and Avery Everitt 40th in 16:09.
“I’m super proud of the way our varsity girls competed,” Peacock said. “They were in the upper pack and finished well.”
In the varsity boys race, which covered 5,000 meters, Jonathan Coody was 28th in 17:40. Jerrod Moses was 88th in 21:08.
“Jonathan ran exceptionally well and dropped a minute off his time,” Peacock said.
In the JV girls race, Tatum Grady placed 14th among 46 runners, clocking 12:50 over 2,400 meters.
“Tatum also shaved quite a bit of time off her mile split from the race before,” Peacock said. “She looked stronger and competed well.”
Albany had an 11-day break between its first and second meets. The runners will have two full weeks before competing at Hawley.
Peacock said longer gaps between meets allow the runners to focus more on training.
“We were able to just keep training hard,” she said. “It was nice to get in some extra mileage that we typically wouldn’t be able to do if we were racing that next week. I feel like it was beneficial and will be this next week, too.”
Albany will run Wednesday, Sept. 27 at Dublin, before the District 10-2A meet Wednesday, Oct. 11 at Hawley.
“We’ll hit it hard again this week and back off a little next week before we run at Hawley,” Peacock said. “I feel like the schedule is nice, and we can just keep getting mileage in.”
Junior High
More than 20 junior high runners will compete at Hawley. The younger athletes held an intrasquad relay meet last week to start preparing for competition.
“You could call it a glorified practice,” Peacock said. “It was just to let me see what they could do.”
Peacock said each runner completed a 0.7-mile leg three times during the event.
“They ended up running a little over two miles and they all competed well,” she said. “We had fun with it.”
Peacock said she had 14 boys, enough for two full teams, and eight girls participating.
“We’ll be able to make a seventh grade girls team and a seventh grade boys team,” she said. “I’ll slide some seventh grade boys over to run with the eighth grade boys and have another team.”
