Large Invitational Meet in Charlotte Good Competition for Milton
Charlotte, NC – McAlpine Greenway Park – by Andy Carr
The Milton cross country teams traveled to the 46th running of the Wendy’s Invitational to compete against some strong regional programs in their annual overnight team trip.
Varsity Girls
The Lady Eagles made a big impression on the very competitive field of teams to finish in the top-10 out of 32 scoring programs. Milton (10th-317 pts) edged out Apex (NC) (11th-318 pts) to garner that top-10 team position. #1 All-Class in Georgia, Marist (1st-122pts,) took the overall title in the invitational race. Sophomore Ella Grace Malcom (30th-19:53) once again led the Lady Eagles and was closely followed by junior Farrah Frith (33rd-19:58) to give Milton a strong 1-2 punch. Sophomore Calista Cacciatore (80th-20:53) followed and was joined by the all-time personal best performance of senior Genevieve Trainor (81st-20:55). Fellow senior Megan Stechschulte (93rd-21:10) closed out the scoring for the Lady Eagles running her 2nd-best all-time performance. Also running varsity were senior captain Jessica Albregts (106th-21:29) and fellow senior Ella Katekovich (118th-21:42).
Varsity Boys
Milton (21st-515 pts) faced its toughest challenge this season and was able to defeat 16 scoring teams. Team winner, Westminster (1st-95 pts), is Georgia’s top-ranked 3A team. The Eagles were led by an all-time personal performance from junior Cory Chambers (13th-16:25) improving on his best by 13 seconds while running in the top-20 the entire race. Fellow junior Oliver Stone (86th-17:27) also dropped a personal best performance to help lead Milton’s boys. Senior captain Charlie Reynolds (133rd-18:00) and Sophomore Zach Patell (134th-18:01) finished together as senior Dylan Bowden (149th-18:10) overcame a fall just passed halfway to close out the Eagles scoring. Juniors Pearson Gillam (159th-18:15) and Jack Rea (185th-18:40) contributed to the Milton effort.
JV Girls
The highest finishing Milton team of the day was the JV Lady Eagles. Milton (6th-193 pts) bested close to 40 programs in the largest race of the day that had 341 finishers. Highlights included the Lady Eagles top-5 finishers of senior Shelby Howerton (19th-22:32), senior captain Ellie Dickinson (38th-23-flat), and the hard-charging freshman Ivy Rindt (43rd-23:13), Macy Schadt (46th-23:21) and Rowan Katekovich (47th-23:23).
JV Boys
Milton’s boys were split by classes for their races and no team scores were kept. Leading the Freshman-Sophomore race was freshman Justin Sevel (30th-18:46) in a near personal best and in the senior-junior race it was junior Keller Wilson (15th-18:43) also just missing his personal best.
The Eagle cross country teams next see action on October 16th in their last regular season invitational meet of the season hosted by Pickens HS in Jasper, GA and then will compete in the GHSA Region 5-7A championships for a spot in the GHSA state meet on October 23rd in Canton, GA.
