Wednesday featured the final week of the cross country regular season in the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference.
It was also the final regular season race for all of the seniors as the Huntingtown Hurricanes hosted the Leonardtown Raiders and Westlake Wolverines in a tri-meet.
The Leonardtown boys (12-1 overall/SMAC) swept the meet as it defeated Huntingtown 25-31 and Westlake 21-40. Huntingtown (10-3) earned the split with a 22-38 win over the Wolverines (7-6).
Leonardtown (12-1) also swept the girls race with 24-32 and 15-50 wins over Huntingtown and Westlake. The Hurricanes (10-3) picked up the split with a 15-50 win over Westlake (0-13).
“We are trying to maintain that tradition of keeping Leonardtown cross country strong,” Leonardtown head coach Brooke Fallon said. “It’s been a challenge this year. We lost some seniors from last year, but our group is stepping up and charged, they are working hard. Our plan is to go to the state meet and stay positive.”
According to Huntingtown head coach David Spain, it was the first time that the boys and girls teams finished with double digits wins in school history.
“It was a really close meet. We battled with Leonardtown in both races and they’ve been a elite team in this conference for years,” Spain said. “Our boys and girls teams are knocking on the door and we have our sights set on the SMAC and [Class 3A South] region meet.”
The Raiders boys finished with seven runners in the top 15, spearheaded by senior Sean O’Roark with a second-place overall time of 17 minutes 40.35 seconds. Senior teammate Parker McDowell placed fourth (17:42.64). Matthew Kosten, Richard Trey Gladwell, and Daniel Ollom came in the seventh, eighth and 10th, respectively.
“I knew Westlake had Jay Hall and he is pretty fast. I kept up with him with for the first mile, but he pulled away,” O’Roark said. “Parker McDowell is my training partner and he always pushes me, so I thank him for that. It has been a great experience running cross country all four years at Leonardtown.”
Hall took control in the boys race early and cruised to a first-place finish in the race with a time of 17:16.95. Hall’s brother Jett finished ninth overall in the race.
“The course was great overall, it was very hilly, but I was able to get a good pace,” Jay Hall said. “I had older brothers who ran at Westlake and it felt good to keep the tradition going. I’m going to miss running cross country for the school.”
Huntingtown also had a strong day with six runners in the top 15 as senior Ben Russell, a first-year cross country runner, took third overall (17:41.24). Conor McGirr and Dyllon Wolf finished fifth and sixth, respectively.
“This was the last regular season meet and I wanted to give it my all,” Russell said. “It was a very competitive meet and it felt good to finish in the top-3 today. It’s been a fun year running cross country. I use to play on the soccer team for the last few years, but decided to switch over.”
In the girls race, Leonardtown had six runners finish in the top 10 with freshman Nelle Ray finishing first in the meet with a time of 20:45.09. Emily Imhof took third (22:02.88) and Rachel Geiger (22:56.45) came in fifth for the Raiders.
“We have a lot of talented runners on the team and it felt good to be able to stay ahead of the pack today,” Ray said. “I’ve dropped my time two minutes since the beginning of the year, so I’ve gotten stronger. I want to finish top-5 in the SMAC meet.”
Huntingtown finished with four runners in the top 10 as Oakley Olsen took second overall (21:22.89), Jane Gorman came in fourth (22:20.11), Mary Gorman finished in sixth (23:13.54), Morgan Lennon (23:29.32) added a ninth-place finish.
Westlake’s Courtney Schaffer placed 30th overall in the race.
Twitter: @ajmason301
