After taking off last weekend to recharge their batteries, the Cougar cross country team came back last Saturday to take an excellent, sixth-place finish at the Fast Cats Classic, held at Owensboro’s Yellow Creek Park.
In just its third year, the Fast Cats Classic, which also features mens’ and womens’ college 8K races, has become a popular destination for some of the best teams from Kentucky and surrounding states. This year, 33 boys’ teams, yielding 296 runners, toed the line at the start of the high school boys 5K. In the girls race were 27 teams and 254 runners.
The Cougars actually finished in a tie with Memphis University School with 218 points, but because Grayson County’s sixth man, senior Ryan Gallagher, finished ahead of Memphis’ sixth man, the Cougars were awarded sixth place.
Sophomore Bret Crawford, as he has been all season, was the first Cougar to cross the finish line, finishing seventh overall with a time of 16:48.50. Junior Sheldon Jones finished 13th with a time of 17:00.00.
Junior Clay Priddy finished 54th with a time of 17:57.84, sophomore Corbin Harris was 65th in 18:11.61, and sophomore Bradley Stone closed out the scoring runs by coming in 82nd overall in 18:36.45.
Gallagher finished just behind Stone in 84th place with a time of 18:38.35. That was well ahead of Memphis University School’s sixth man, Christian Schneiter, who finished 103rd in 18:58.95.
Junior Jacob Hart finished 170th in 20:10.50, just edging junior teammate Blake Meredith, who was 171st in 20:11.01. Sophomore Taylor Reyes was the final Cougar across the line, finishing 238th in 21:58.43.
Myhlenberg County’s Chase Geary was the individual winner, finishing with a blazing time of 15:58.30. The host team, Daviess County, finished first with 93 points. In second was Meade County with 108 and in third was Covington Catholic, with 186.
The Lady Cougars’ top runner, junior Chaley Trail, has been battling illness the past couple of weeks and chose to sit out this race.
In her place, the Lady Cougars ran three of their promising middle school runners, along with two high school runners to field a team in the top-notch field.
Eighth-grader Myriam Hanover was the first Lady Cougars across the line, finishing 135th overall with a time of 23:49.70. Eighth-grader Teresa Graas was 146th in 24:08.30, seventh-grader Heather Priddy was 164th in 24:29.90, and sophomore Mackenzie Arndell was 247th in 32:03.10. Sophomore Maggie Lush was the final Lady Cougar across the line, but her time was unavailable.
Nicole Gardner, of Siegel High School, was the individual winner with a time of 18:06.00. Louisville’s Dupont Manual High School was the team winner with 48 points. Daviess County was second with 54 points, and Siegel was third with 82. The Lady Cougars finished 27th with 720 points.
Grayson County will stay closer to home next week as the cross country teams take part in the first-ever Central Kentucky Run for the Gold. The race is being co-sponsored by John Hardin, North Hardin and Elizabethtown High Schoosl and will take place at the new Elizabethtown Sports Park, off of Ring Road.
In an unusual format, the races will be held in the evening hours instead of in the morning. Elementary school races will begin at 2:45 p.m. central time, with the girls varsity race scheduled for 6:15 and the boys varsity at 7 p.m.
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