NEWBERRY – For the second time in school history, it was a clean sweep for the Fort Mill Yellow Jackets.
Fort Mill won both the boys and girls 5A Division II state cross-country championships Thursday at the Farm at Newberry College. This was the second time that Fort Mill has swept a state championship event winning both the boys and girls state titles in the same year. The first was last year in 2023 when the boys and girls swim team swept the 5A state championship for Fort Mill. The Fort Mill cross-country program has six state titles to its name with the boys’ team having won four and the girls team have won two.
Fort Mill head cross country coach Lee Whitaker called the girls state race, the “gutsiest” he has seen. Fort Mill didn’t cruise to the win as much as they possibly could have had three runners not been battling flu like symptoms. Still, the Fort Mill girls’ team was able to win the state championship for the second consecutive year.
“This is the race I am most proud of them for,” Whitaker said. “They all gutted it out for the benefit of the team.”
Fort Mill girls scored 39 points beating out Chapin who had 81 points. The Lady Jackets were led by two-time defending state champion Alivia Cleveland, one of the runners suffering from flu-like symptoms, who finished fifth in 19:40.
Ella Demmerle was sixth in 19:46, Avery Moriarty was seventh, also in 19:46, and Mia Zook was eighth in 19:48. Kaylee Rovenstine rounded out the scoring for Fort Mill finishing 13th in 20:08. Both Demmerle and Rovenstine were the other two Fort Mill runners that were sick.
While the girls’ race wasn’t close, the boys’ race was a lot closer as the Jackets was separated from Eastside by just by 15 points.
In the boy’s race, the finish was too hard to calculate by just looking where both Fort Mill and Eastside finished. The Jackets scored 73 points, while Eastside ended with 88. Fort Mill was led by a second-place finish from Isaac Campbell in 15:59.
Fort Mill’s Owen Ware was 10th in 16:48; with Hudson Haley being right behind him in 11th in 16:49. Finn Leckrone was 21st in 17:12 and Zack Larner was 29th in 17:26 to finish the scoring for the Jackets. One thing that was crucial for the Fort Mill boys was their sixth runner, Tanner Helms, who came in ahead of Eastside’s fifth runner. Helms finished 33rd in 17:30.
The race was a team effort for Fort Mill, Whitaker said.
“They are a team and they ran like a team,” he said. “A lot of credit goes to our sixth runner.”
For Whitaker it is his fourth state championship with the program, putting him into a tie with Fort Mill head swim coach Cindy Van Buskirk for second most state titles ever won at the school. Whitaker is one state title behind school record holder and retired boys’ tennis coach Willie Ware with five.
The state championships Thursday is the 37th and 38th state team championships for the Fort Mill High School athletic department.
Nation Ford finished fourth in the girls’ race with 177 points and fifth in the boys’ race with 150 points.
The Lady Falcons were led by Taylor Battle with a 14th place finish in 20:08. Jordyn Battle was 20th for the Falcons in 20:35, Haley Garcia was 32nd in 20:57, Elise Posko finished 52nd in 21:44, and Madison Littlehale was 64th in 22:21.
The Nation Ford boys were led by Mason Haynes who was eighth in 16:42. He was followed by Aiden Moysaenko in 28th in 17:22. Robert Saddler was 34th in 17:31 and Alexander Bentley was 36th for the Falcons in 17:36. Townsend Smith rounded out the scoring for the Falcons with a 47th place finish in 17:59.
The Catawba Ridge girls team finished eighth with 221 points. They were led by a 10th place finish from Isabella Cardozo in 19:58. Karley Johnson was 49th in 21:36 and Zadie Wilkerson was 51st in 21:44 for Catawba Ridge. Alaina Kilpatrick was 56th in 22:10 and Olivia Gillespie was 63rd in 22:21 to finish the Copperheads’ scoring.
The Catawba Ridge boys finished fourth with 119 points and were led by Jordan Kent in 16:56 with a 14th place finish. Ryan Pierson was 15th in 16:59 for the Copperheads and Aiden Rogers was 22nd in 17:14. Nathan Wiegman was 31st in 17:27 and Lincoln Smith was 37th in 17:37 finishing things off for Catawba Ridge.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
