ROCK HILL – The Fort Mill cross country team sprinted pass the competition to win the Trojan Invitational at Northwestern High School Saturday.
Both the boys’ and girls’ cross-country teams won handily as Fort Mill’s Alivia Cleveland won the girl’s race in 18:27 setting a new course record by eight seconds.
The sophomore Cleveland said she knew she was fast on a cooler Saturday morning.
“It helps that it was cooler,” she said. “It was still humid. My goal is to beat my record from before. Every year, I just want to improve.”
Fort Mill girls scored 18 points beating second place Northwestern, who scored 63 points. The Jackets had four of the top five finishers with Kaylee Rovenstine coming in second in 19:39. Avery Moriarty came in third in 19:30 and Mia Zook came in fifth in 20:29 for Fort Mill.
Sara Davis rounded out the scoring for Fort Mill with a seventh-place finish in 20:57.
The Nation Ford girls finished 10th with 272 points. Megan O’Flynn led the Falcons with a 29th place finish in 22:50. She was followed by Lauren Bassing in 47th in 24:34, Megan Dula in 64th in 26:09, Saylor Murray in 79th in 28:06 and Emma Clark in 87th in 29:26.
In the boy’s race, Fort Mill scored 27 points for the win as Mauldin came in second with 110 points. The Jackets were led by Isaac Campbell who finished second overall in 16:01 and was edged out by 0.3 of a second at the line by South Pointe’s Garrett Brown who won the boy’s race.
Four other Fort Mill runners came in with a top 10 finish as Liam Eident finished fourth in 16:43. Connor Demmerle was fifth for the Jackets in 16:51 and Tanner Long was seventh in 17:03. Sam Leckrone finished ninth in 17:08 to round out the scoring for Fort Mill.
Nation Ford boys finished 10th overall with 250 points. They were led by Owen Houston with a 34th place finish in 18:35. He was followed by Logan Dayrit in 43rd in 18:58, Hudson Teubner in 51st in 19:11 and Brennan Wellmon in 61st in 19:27. Vyom Madeyanda ended the scoring for Nation Ford finishing in 20:00 in 79th overall.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
