PREP CROSS COUNTRY: Heat, humidity beat on runners

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on August 30, 2018 5:51 AM

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Heat.

Oppressive humidity.

Tiny hills camouflaged by grass.

All of these elements challenged more than 150 runners during a multi-team cross country meet contested at the Bryan Multi-Sports Complex on Wednesday afternoon.

And everyone chased South Central on the flat 5k layout.

The Falcons had the top two individual finishers -- Fletcher Bost in the boys with a time of 19 minutes, 8 seconds and Natalie Baldwin in the girls with a 21:42.

South Central, not surprisingly, swept the team competition. A total of eight points separated the Falcons (41 points), Wayne Country Day (47) and New Bern (49) on the boys' side. The Falcon girls out-worked New Bern 22-43. WCDS placed a distant third at 89.

Bost crossed the line 12 seconds ahead of New Bern's Blake Self.

Wayne Country Day's tandem of Connor Bauer and Avery Best ended third and fourth, respectively.

Eastern Wayne's Julian Jones crossed the line in 21:29.

"Julian ran an amazing race today," Warriors' coach Vince Beasley said. "I am happy with how the boys ran considering the heat and the fact that many of them are new to running. Boys' Coach Cody Britt has done a great job with the training program over the last few weeks, and I think we'll see significant improvement as the runners all get stronger.

"And once it starts to cool down a bit."

The Warriors tied Goldsboro with 131, but won the tiebreaker with the sixth-highest finisher in the meet.

Donavan Jones led the Cougars with a 12th-place time of 22:44. David Allen-Casey and Jyrei Thompson wound up 32nd and 33rd, respectively.

Southern Wayne's Graham Jernigan, Ryan Norton and Luke Muston took 24th, 25th and 26th overall.

"I felt like all of my athletes did a great job," SW head coach Kanesha Jones said. "They came out here and exceeded their expectations, so I'm real happy with that. I just told them to go at your own speed, don't try to beat everybody else. You're trying to beat yourself.

"I think that they took that [advice] and did the best they could with it."

Gray Young, a senior at Wayne Country Day, posted a top-10 finish in 26:23. Katherine Eltz complimented Gray with a 14th-place time of 27:11. Hayden Nielsen was 16th in 27:17.

Goldsboro's top placer was Landry Harrell, who ended up 19th in 28:11.

Amina Bercirovic and Sam Knight grabbed 30th and 34th place for the Warriors.

"[The] girls ran hard, but the heat ran harder," Beasley said. "Amina and Anna [Kierski] are returning to improve on last year's times. We're working hard to rebuild this year. New runner Sam Knight is getting used to it quick."

Southern Wayne's top runner was Caroline Best, who secured 24th in 28:28.