Homeschool Cross Country Championships

Before I dive into the review of the Homeschool State Meet, let me just say that I was wildly impressed with this meet. Coach Pickering of the Hattiesburg Forerunners, Coach Jones of the Jackson Victors, and of course many others, built an outstanding meet from scratch, and I thought it was very successful. It was honestly one of the most enjoyable meets I have covered thus far due to the great atmosphere that was out there. I 'tip my hat' to everyone involved in the making of that meet, and their hard work did not go unnoticed

Setting the mood and starting off the day was the Elementary Boys and Girls 1 mile run, and let me just say I was a huge fan of that race. It got the crowd hyped up, as it is literally impossible to not cheer for that. We even saw another appearance of Mississippi MileSplit's favorite Olivia Legg!

Start of the Elementary 1 mile

Moving over to the Varisty Girls, we saw a thrilling finish between Hattiesburg Forerunners teammate Alyssa Frost and Audrey Waller. Frost took it out hard from the gun and had a pretty sizeable gap on the field at the 1-mile, and Emmalee Lentile was the only one brave enough to go with her. Waller, on the other hand, had a more conservative approach, running with her teammates through the first mile and then began picking off the field as the race went on, and made up some pretty noticeable ground at the hill that marked halfway. 

With less than a mile to go, Frost still had a very large gap, and even though Waller was in 2nd at the time, the race had looked all but over as they entered the woods one last time. When they came out of the woods though, Waller was gaining on Frost fast. 

Less than 200 meters to go, and Waller was right on Frost's heels. Waller began to make a move on her teammate and gun it for the state title, but Frost gave a hard response, kicking to the line for her first-ever state championship in cross country. Waller was 3 seconds behind in a PR of 21:31, over 3 minutes faster than what she ran at last year's state championship. As a matter of fact, the improvements that Waller has made from last season to this year have been phenomenal, and one that should definitely be on the Mississippi XC Stock Market!

The Hattiesburg pair led the team to a state title, scoring a very low 18 points. This victory also automatically qualifies them to the All-State Meet of Champions and will be the only homeschool team to do so. 

The close finish between Frost and Waller

The Varsity boys 5k was just as exciting, as we got to see middle school stud Henry Richardson toe the line to defend his state title from last year, and was just coming off of a 16:56 solo win. Richardson took it out somewhat hard, but nothing crazy, and had a chase pack of 2 Forerunners and 2 Tupelo Spartans not far behind, making it an interesting team race. 

At the halfway mark on the hill, Richardson's teammate Max Bowling and Tupelo Spartan Jeb Hamilton had broken away from the chase pack and were actually somewhat gaining on Richardson. I thought for a minute that we could perhaps see a major upset, but it was right after the halfway mark that Richardson decided to drop the hammer. At around the same time, Bowling made his move on Hamilton, as the Forerunners were trying to copy their teammates in the girl's race and go 1-2. 

Both Richardson and Bowling increased their gap on the field, leading the Forerunners and making it a 1-2 sweep, as well as a team title sweep, as Richardson and Bowling went 17:35 and 17:58 to lead their team to a narrow 9 point victory over the Tupelo Spartans. 

They will also be joining the girls at the All-State Championships. 

I for one am very interested to see how these 2 teams fare against some of the public schools out there, as I think that they will do better than most people think... I guess we will find out on November 13.