GMC takes 3 of 4 Baldwin Cups, Oak Hill boys win the other

Published 3:00 pm Friday, September 20, 2024

The 10th Baldwin County Cross Country Championships were held at Walter B. Williams Jr. Park Thursday.

At the end of what was a hot day for running, GMC Prep had three teams – middle school girls, high school boys and high school girls – take the team championships. The boys from Oak Hill Middle School kept it from being a Bulldog sweep.

Cross country is the only sport in which all the local schools compete against one another. Runners from Baldwin High School, GMC Prep, John Milledge Academy, and Oak Hill Middle School take to the course against one another several times throughout the XC season, but the annual Baldwin County Cup is the only one where it’s just the local athletes competing. Coaches split up duties to put on what is a friendly race that brings the student running community together one night each fall.

The middle school boys were the first to take to the two-mile course that wound its way around the rec department’s ponds and fields. Oak Hill eighth-grader Bryson Wright left everyone in his rearview mirror to win the opening race comfortably. GMC Prep eighth-grader Sachin Rochon finished as runner-up while Oak Hill’s Blake Wright came in third. The middle school GMC Bulldogs had three of the top five runners in the race, but the young Braves placed all five of their scoring runners in the top eight to win their team’s second county title in a row, 25-34.

Scoring for cross country is simple. The placements for a team’s top five runners are added together to calculate their score. The team with the lowest number of points wins.

Like the middle school boys race, the girls’ was a runaway with GMC eighth-grader Sylvia Brown taking the individual crown. Oak Hill teammates Conniya Reeves and Aubree Harper, last year’s middle school girls county champ, finished 2-3 respectively to lead the Bravettes. It was Brown and the Lady Bulldogs, though, who won the team championship 32-44.

On to the high school level where the course was lengthened to a full 5K, or 3.1 miles. Thursday marked the first time since 2020 that a runner not named Emanuel Dixon won first place in the high school boys race, but that honor still went to someone from Baldwin High School. Picking up the baton was sophomore E’palahame Tonga-Taylor, or ET for short, who won the race with an otherworldly burst at the end to edge out GMC Prep’s Grady Meier. Last year’s GHSA Class A Division II individual state champion Julian Council from GMC is working his way back from illness, and placed third. GMC Prep was the only scoring team that fielded the required five runners at the high school boys level, so the Bulldogs enjoyed their third Baldwin County Cup win in a row.

The event’s finale was the high school girls race, one where a John Milledge Academy runner had the school’s best finish of the day. Freshman Pierce Moore earned the top prize, improving upon last year’s Baldwin County XC Championship performance where she was third as an eighth-grader. GMC Prep senior Meadow Roberts was runner-up, and Baldwin sophomore Trinia Lawrence led the Bravettes at third. In the team totals, the Lady Bulldogs won that accolade over second-place Baldwin 31-38.

All the teams still have a few more weeks and races to prepare for the ones that really count, region and state. Region races in October will be used to determine which runners and teams will move on to contend for state championships.