Runners fare well at state

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on November 7, 2005 2:04 PM

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CLEMMONS -- Eastern Wayne's Michael Lawrence, the Class 3-A N.C. High School Athletic Association east regional champion, finished 12th overall at the state championship meet -- running a 17:12.12 on Saturday at Tanglewood Park.

Lawrence, who was two seconds behind the 11th finisher, proved to be only runner from Wayne County that qualified for the 3-A championship. One-hundred and thirty runners participated in the 3-A meet.

In the 1-A boys meet, Spring Creek's Eric Walters ran a 19:00.46, good for 26th overall, as the Gators finished with a team score of 282 to finish in 12th place out of 16 teams. The meet marked the first time Spring Creek had ever qualified for the state championship as a team.

Pat Wilkens finished 65th and ran a 20:11.80 for Spring Creek, while teammates Alex Casey (20:29.27), Daniel Harris (20:51.08), Daniel Correll (21:07.22), Ryan Kelly (23:29.68) and Matt Wilkens (27:30.02) also participated.

North Duplin finished 13th in the team scoring with 342 team points as Clint Bland led the Rebels with a 19:47.38, good for 53rd overall out of 129 runners in the 1-A meet.

Michael Mathis (20:26.66), Kyle Canuette (20:47.15), Justin Hicks (21:51.20), Miquel Torres (22:21.44), John Canuette (23:34.32) and Matthew Bounds (26:39.21) also ran for North Duplin.

Princeton's Chris Hinton (21:03.84) ran as an individual and finished 93rd.

The Princeton girls finished fifth overall out of 16 teams with a team score of 151.

Heather Braswell, who finished 12th, paced the Bulldogs with a 21:57.53, while teammate Courtney Yancey (23:11.58) took 23rd. Megan Hewett (24:06.65), Olivia Booker (24:27.50), Haylee Wood (26:06.54) and Cole Hill (28:22.39) also participated for Princeton.

North Duplin's Rocio Alvaredo (24:49.00) and Amy Hicks (26:32.32) finished 54th and 81st, respectively, as individual competitors.