RAEFORD — The Richmond Senior High School boys’ and girls’ cross country teams stepped outside the comfort zone of their Sandhills Hills Athletic Conference meets to compete in the Patriot Derby Invitational on Saturday.
A 15-team event hosted by Pinecrest High School at the Carolina Horse Track, Saturday’s meeting wasn’t about trying to win the overall team score, but instead see Richmond’s runners compete with some of the best in the state while also preparing for regionals.
There were three separate events ran during the meet, seeing the Raiders and Lady Raiders run in the “Future Stars” race.
Winning the boys’ race was Green Hope High School (Cary, N.C.), which saw its first five runners finish in the top six spots with 18 points. In the girls’ race, Holly Springs High School (Holly Springs, N.C.) edged Charles E. Jordan High School (Durham, N.C.) by one point, 51-50.
The top five times for each school were used to determine each school’s placement. The Lady Raiders finished sixth out of seven schools (165 points), and the Raiders came in ninth with a score of 265 points.
Runners started with a three-quarter lap around the horse track before entering a set of woods and climbing a steep hill back to a flatter field. Then they traversed their way back into another tract of woods before returning to the horse track, this time finishing the race in the opposite direction from which they started.
Richmond’s Airel Miller, who has been the No. 1 Lady Raider all season, finished 11th overall out of 111 total runners. In the closing mile, she was in ninth place but slipped two spots to finish with a time of 23:01.96. She was just 0.89 seconds behind Holly Springs’ Cayleigh Nelson to break into the top 10, but Brown was awarded a medal for her top-15 finish.
Senior Airel Brown with her 11th-place medal following Saturday’s Patriot Derby.
“The invitational was very challenging for our team,” Lady Raider head coach Jessica Covington said. “We were faced with such great competition and the course had a lot of hills and thick terrain.
“The girls’ first mile times were actually faster than normal because of the competition,” she added. “Then we struggled through the latter part of the course. But I’m proud of them and look forward to our next meet.”
For the Raiders, it was again junior Carson Jordan leading the Richmond field, finishing 40th overall in a tough field of 157 runners. Jordan sprinted the final 100 yards and made a move along the outside of the pack, passing a couple of runners to end with a time of 19:59.56, less than half a second behind Panther Creek’s Bilal Malik.
Junior Carson Jordan (541) crosses the finish line during Saturday’s Patriot Derby.
Freshman Rylie Bohman made her strongest push of the season, placing second on the Lady Raider team (37th, 27:27.36). Although it wasn’t her fastest 3.2-mile time this fall, it was her best finish amongst her teammates. Next in line for Richmond was senior Abby Calhoun (38th, 27:57..27), followed by junior Allyson Leggett (39th, 28:13.58) and freshman Sheccid Heaton (40th, 28:15.83).
Rounding out the top five sports for the Raiders behind Jordan were senior Joey Nicholson (45th, 20:31.58), junior Will Thompson (59th, 23:37.68), junior Josh Wallace (60th, 23:51.98) and freshman Kodie Simmons (61st, 26:39.15).
“The boys did a tremendous job running with the talented teams out of Wake County,” boys’ head coach Reggie Miller said. “Running in invitationals helps us progress as a team and running with talented teams helps us grow as a team.
“These teams from Wake County are in our region and this gave us an early chance to see how good those teams are,” he closed. “Overall, this was a good test for our team.”
Both Richmond teams will return to SAC competition on Tuesday when they travel to Fayetteville to run against Hoke County, Jack Britt and host Seventy-First high schools.
