WINSTON-SALEM – On a tough course at Tanglewood Park, Watauga’s cross country teams learned from their experience running there earlier this season to finish well at the NCHSAA 4-A State Championships Saturday. The girls’ team finished seventh overall while the boys’ finished eighth. The girls’ team was led by Ashley Norris finishing sixth, Anna Mae Flynn finishing 12th and Danielle Cullen in 29th. “Ashley ran wonderfully,” Watauga coach Randy McDonough said. “I’m so proud of her. Our goal at the beginning of the year was for her to be all-state. We’ve talked about it and she wasn’t as confident about her chances as I was, but I knew when she came in as a freshman that she was going to be an all-state runner before she left.” |
The top 10 finishers at the state meet make up the all-state team. Norris came into the last mile of the race in seventh behind Ashley Robinson of McDowell, but passed her within 100 yards of the finish to move up a position.
“I felt really good,” Norris said. “At the end, Ashley Robinson from McDowell really pushed me. My goal with her in front of me with another mile was that I wanted to get her and I got her. I finished strong and that’s as hard as I could have ran.”
Over the course of the season, Norris’ gradual improvement as a runner moved her to the top of the Pioneers’ lineup. It was a long road to travel from her initial experience with cross country.
“Freshman year, I didn’t really care,” she said. “Then in my sophomore year, the team started trying to really get me involved and in my junior year I started to take it more seriously. This year I decided I needed to go get it and do good and go to college and run for it because I like it a lot now.”
Her time of 19:45.51 was about 28 seconds shy of race winner, Lindsey Nadolski of Chapel Hill. Flynn was just 20 seconds behind Norris, finishing 12th in 20:05.65 and Danielle Cullen finished 29th in 20:44.09.
“I thought Anna Mae did very well,” McDonough said. “She wanted to be all-state and I thought she could. She was just on the outside looking in. I’ll tell her she was second team all-state because if you take the first seven and the second seven, she is all-state.” McDonough was also happy with the way Cullen ran.
“Danielle ran her best race of the year. She was very aggressive. I told her she was the bomb before the race, and she went off. I don’t know if there’s anyone out there who looks more determined than Danielle on the race course.”
The top three Pioneers will graduate this year. Without them, McDonough said he is still looking forward to next year’s group. He expects they will be different, but that the results will be very similar, especially if they take to heart McDonough’s views on running cross country.
“I’ve always said cross country is not talent, it’s an attitude,” McDonough said. “The attitude is who is going to work the hardest to get to where they want to be.”
The boys’ team worked hard throughout the state race. In their earlier race at Tanglewood — the 4-Runners Invitational — the Pioneers learned they had to conserve their energy for the course. At the 1-mile mark of that race, they had five of the top 10 runners, but they lost ground over the last 2.1 miles.
At the state championship, they still had to get out fast due to the quickly-narrowing course. The key would be conserving energy while remaining within striking distance.
“We ran hard but we got a few people caught in the middle pack and once you get caught in the pack it’s hard to get out,” McDonough said. “But I was proud of the way they ran, they ran hard and did everything they could.”
They were able to conserve some energy and made up ground in the last two miles of the race.
“It was one of those races where we moved up a lot and I think that if it was a little longer, we would have moved up a whole lot more,” McDonough said. “We were moving up all the way to the end, but it was just a little too little too late.”
Luke Short finished best for the Pioneers, in 29th with a time of 17:04.37, his best time on the course. Short said the race was a little uncharacteristic of races at Tanglewood.
“The race in general went out kind of slow,” Short said. “Usually in the backstretch it’s pretty vicious. There were still a few elbows flying but it wasn’t nearly as fast-paced as most starts we’ve had here. I guess everybody was wanting to conserve so everybody went out a little slower.”
Though they went out a little slower, the front runners for the Pioneers came back in faster. Short, Jacob Bathanti and Aaron Bennett, all seniors, were the top three finishers for Watauga.
Bathanti finished just behind Short in 31st with a time of 17:07.87 and Bennett finished 39th with a time of 17:18.94.
“For me, Jacob and Aaron, it’s our last year here,” Short said. “We were figuring, it’s our last performance at high school so we might as well give it our all. There’s nothing later so we have nothing to save up for.”
Having left everything on the course, the Pioneers managed an improvement from last season’s finish of 12th. Despite not taking home the State crown, McDonough said he was happy with how the season ended.
“I’m proud of these two teams,” McDonough said. “We’ve won a lot of state championships, but that doesn’t make me any less proud of these two teams doing what they’ve done in the last couple years.”
NCHSAA 4-A State Championships
Boys’ team results:
1, Pinecrest, 102; 2, Chapel Hill, 106; 3, South View, 124; 4, Mount Tabor, 140; 5, McDowell, 141; 6, Myers Park, 141; 7, Broughton, 155; 8, Watauga, 214; 9, Green Hope, 236; 10, Apex, 263; 11, West Forsyth, 290; 12, South Caldwell, 302; 13, Millbrook, 327; 14, North Forsyth, 341; 15, A.E. Laney, 346; 16, New Hanover, 371.
Boys’ individual results:
1, Sandy Roberts (Bro), 15:36.91; 2, Jack Bolas (CH), 15:54.65; 3, Ryan Workman (CH), 16:06.91; 4, Ryan Curran (MT), 16:07.37; 5, Duncan Hoge (CH), 16:08.21; 6, Matt Dobler (Wake), 16:12.07; 7, Drew Felts (WF), 16:22.69; 8, Mitch Graw (En), 16:28.85; 9, Zack Dawson (NG), 16:33.79; 10, Chase Williams (Pine), 16:34.02.
Watauga results:
29, Luke Short, 17:04.37; 31, Jacob Bathanti, 17:07.87; 39, Aaron Bennett, 17:18.94; 70, Luke Nelson, 17:50.95; 108, Isaac Smith, 18:39.13; 109, Kevin Wade, 18:40.04; 115, Thomas Holden, 18:47.31.
Girls’ team results:
1, Providence, 56; 2, Chapel Hill, 80; 3, Broughton, 102; 4, Mount Tabor, 152; 5, Apex, 188; 6, Northwest Guilford, 192; 7, Watauga, 201; 8, South Mecklenburg, 215; 9, Pinecrest, 224; 10, R.J. Reynolds, 228; 11, Enloe, 245; 12, Green Hope, 253; 13 Myers Park, 279; 14, Terry Sanford, 322; 15, Scotland County, 383; 16, South View, 452.
Girls’ individual results: 1, Lindsey Nadolski (CH), 19:17.73; 2, Andie Cozzarelli (Apex), 19:19.12; 3, Callan Fike (Athens), 19:29.21; 4, Courtney Bowen (MT), 19:36.11; 5, Alissa Wilke (Prov), 19:38.31; 6, Ashley Norris (Wat), 19:45.51; 7, Ashley Robinson (McD), 19:46.91; 8, Caroline Johnson (Prov), 19:51.24; 9, Morgan Medders (En), 19:57.15; 10, Ashley Samuel (RJR), 19:57.44.
Watauga’s other results:
12, Anna Mae Flynn, 20:05.65; 29, Danielle Cullen, 20:44.09; 95, Meaghan Dolan, 22:29.84; 98, Dolly Dollar, 22:33.64; 106, Melody Dollar, 23:01.28; 113, Elizabeth Culatta, 23:21.67.