Jaguar Trails Classic
HIGH SCHOOL BOYS
While there was some great competition going on in the North part of the State, the Central region of Mississippi also had some deep fields at the Jaguar Trails Classic, hosted by Madison Central HS.
Madison Central ultimately decided to sit out their top guys, but we still had Pearl, Clinton, William Fugate, Grayson Edwards - Oh yea, and the #1 team in the state, Brookhaven High School.
As always, Brookhaven set the tone and made it a show as the trio of Sam Arnold, Grayson Childress, and Jake Thompson went 1-2-3, which repeated their top 3 finish from last year. Brookhaven also put all 5 inside of the top 11, Trey Knott getting 7th and Collin Kellum 11th, easily snagging the team title and continuing their undefeated streak against Mississippi competition.
Although Childress is the #1 ranked runner in the state right now, it was actually Sam Arnold taking the win, beating Childress for the 2nd time this season. Childress and Arnold are the only 2 Mississippi runners that have beaten each other this season - That statistic is insane considering the competition they have faced this year.
It was basically Arnold and Childress leading the whole way, with Thompson in their wake. Arnold said he had an 'uh oh moment' whenever they came through the 2 miles in 10:20 and decided to take off and surge to the finish from there. Childress let him go, and Arnold earned his 4th sub-16:10 5k this season, taking the win 17 seconds ahead of Childress. Thompson was 3rd, 16 seconds behind Childress in 16:40.
Over the last couple of weeks, Jake Thompson has really found himself as a cross country runner and has been running extremely well. He had a huge race last weekend at Jesse Owens whenever he ran a PR of 16:18, and then came back to get 3rd against some really good competition - some of the best in the state. Last weekend, Thompson said his secret is to take the sport of what it is - just simply going out and running, rather than overthinking it.
The first non-Brookhaven runner was Fugate, coming in 7 seconds behind Thompson in 16:47 and ousting Grayson Edwards by 1 second as those 2 rounded out the top 5.
Next up for basically all of these young men is MC Watson next weekend...
HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS
In the girl's race, it was all Emily Ireland from St. Andrews as she snagged her 3rd win in a row this season. Sub-20 was a long time coming for Ireland, and she finally broke the barrier on Saturday running 19:42 and winning by a full minute.
Although Ireland won by a pretty sizeable gap, she was actually getting pulled along the first mile as a group lead by East Rankin's Leah Collipp and Emily Williams came out hot and made sure the race got off to a fast start. Ireland said she took control in between the 800m-1000m mark, and after the first mike, it was essentially a solo effort.
Collipp and Williams also ran some pretty big PR's - Especially Emily Williams, who had never broken 23 in her career until Cathedral 5 days prior, and then came back on Saturday to break 21, running 20:56. This is huge for East Rankin Academy as they are competing in the very tough class of MSAIS 5A, which included private school powerhouses such as Columbia Academy and Simpson Academy. What an outstanding run for Williams, as she burst onto the running scene coming from nowhere and took down some very tough competition on Saturday.
Next up for Ireland, which is once again basically where everybody listed will be, is MC Watson, where she will try and again lower PR - perhaps in the low 19's...