SOUTHERN PINES — The Elks Lodge course, home of the infamous “cake hill,” made Monday’s Sandhills Athletic Conference cross country meet difficult for runners from three local high schools.
Even though times increased across the board for the Lady Raiders, Richmond secured its second straight second-place finish to start the year.
Behind another strong showing from their top-five runners, the Lady Raiders scored 47 points. Host Pinecrest High School had five of its runners in the top six spots, resulting in a meet win with 16 points.
Lumberton High School was also at the meet, but only had one runner. Bailee Luper took first overall in the race, recording a time of 22:51, which was 32 seconds faster than second-place finisher Mia Martin (Pinecrest).
Because Lumberton didn’t have at least five runners competing, the Lady Pirates did not qualify for the final team score.
Breaking up the strong finish by Pinecrest was Richmond’s Maylyn Wallace. The junior ran the 5K race in 24:25, which was good enough for fifth overall. That time was 1:45 slower than the personal record she set in last week’s season opener, but attributed the course’s toughness to the increase.
The next four Lady Raiders all finished in quick succession, taking the ninth through 12th spots. Sophomore Rhylie Bohman became the second Lady Raider to finish, clocking in at 27:17 and in ninth place.
Fellow sophomore Sheccid Heaton was 10th with a time of 28:14, senior Alena Craddock took 11th place (28:49) and freshman Kayleigh Cloninger rounded out the team’s scoring with a 12th-place mark of 28:51.
“We all worked hard to finish the course and tried to push each other during the race,” Craddock said. “Although our times were not where we wanted them to be, I think the difficulty of the course will help us set PRs in the races to come.”
Richmond had three other runners compete in the meet. Freshman Gabby Lutz took 23 seconds off her time from last week, earning a new PR with 29:24 (13th). Senior Zamiya McInnis was 14th (31:01) and sophomore Andrea Ellerbe ran a time of 31:11 for 15th place.
“The girls all did a great job,” head coach Jessica Covington said. “I’m still very proud of their effort and we are continuing to work on lowering our time and building endurance.”
The Richmond boys and girls cross country teams will return to action after the holiday break on Nov. 30. It will be the Raiders’ lone home meet of the season at Hinson Lake in Rockingham, which will feature Jack Britt, Lumberton and Purnell Swett high schools.
