Fort Mill’s Devon Sibley crosses the finish line in first followed by teammate Evan Wey following in a close second.

ROCK HILL – The Fort Mill cross country team stretched their legs and sprinted to a sweep of the York County Championship at Northwestern Saturday morning.

Fort Mill won both the boys’ and girls’ races, as well as both JV races as a team and also swept all four races with individual racers winning also. Jackets’ head coach Lee Whitaker said these types of races are getting his team ready for the big race in the first week of November – the 5A state championship in Columbia.

“There is so much more competition at these races,” he said. “It gives them a chance to compete.”

The meet was made up of all the local high schools in York County, minus Catawba Ridge, who didn’t participate this year.

The Jackets competed Saturday, but was way ahead of the competition. In the girl’s race, Fort Mill scored a 19 to win getting four of the top five positions as Alivia Cleveland won in 19:08 for the varsity girls. The next closest team was Northwestern with a 70, followed by the York County homeschool group with 101 and then Nation Ford with 116 points.

Following Cleveland’s time was Fort Mill’s Avery Moriarty in second in 19:24 and then Angel Kravitz in third in 19:46, one tenth of a second ahead of Rock Hill’s first runner. Kelsey McGuire finished fifth overall for Fort Mill in 20:03 and Mia Zook ended the scoring for the Jackets in eighth overall in 20:09.

Nation Ford was led by Adria Kahre in 18th as she finished with a 21:35, followed by Jennifer Zermeno in 20th in 21:47 and Megan O’Flynn in 22nd in 21:53. AnnMarie Macheski was 26th for the Falcons in 22:07 and Taylor Battle ended the scoring for Nation Ford in 30th in 22:39.

In the boys’ varsity race, Fort Mill had four of the top six finishers and scored 25 points to win over Nation Ford who came in second with 61 points.

The Jackets’ Devon Sibley won the event for the boys in 16:06, three seconds ahead of teammate Evan Wey, who was second in 16:09. Fort Mill’s Jackson Dawson came in fifth overall at 16:31 and separated himself from teammate Evan Ickert, who was sixth in 16:34. Liam Eident finished 11th overall for the Jackets to finish the scoring in 17:09.

For Nation Ford, Mason Haynes was fourth overall and the first Falcons finisher in 16:18, followed by Chase Johnson in 10th in 17:03. Alexander Bentley was 12th for Nation Ford in 17:09 and then Charles Hall finished 16th in 17:35. Townsend Smith came in 19th for Nation Ford in 17:41 to round off the scoring.

Winning the JV girls race for Fort Mill was Reagan Michael in 21:45 and winning the JV boys race for the Jackets was Tanner Long in 17:16.

Both Fort Mill and Nation Ford will now focus on the Region 3-5A meet Tuesday, Oct. 26 at the Anne Springs Close Greenway.

Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep

Fort Mill’s Alivia Cleveland leads a group of girls runners at the start of the girl’s race during the York County Championships.