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Swain Lady Devils are pictured after the Hare and the Hound Invitational held in Charlotte this past weekend. -
Swain Maroon Devils are pictured after the Hare and the Hound Invitational held in Charlotte this past weekend.
Larry Griffin
lgriffin@thesmokymountaintimes.com
The Swain County Maroon Devils Cross Country team continued its foray into bigger goals as it tackled the Hare and the Hound XC Invitational in McAlpine Greenway in Charlotte for the first time ever this past weekend, between Friday, Sept. 22 and Saturday, Sept. 23.
The race had over 3,000 runners from over 100 teams across the state.
It was another example of Coach Keith Payne’s stated objectives for the cross-country team at the beginning of the season – given their victories in recent years past, they’re looking beyond the Smoky Mountain Conference to try and push their talents and grow as much as possible, instead trying for bigger statewide meets.
“These are the type of races coming in we know and understand that we will not win. The point of these meets are to race people better than you from 1-7. This gives all of our kids the ability to race with people and not race in space like we find in the smaller meets where there are gaps in ability levels,” he wrote.
Payne said the team was satisfied with the results overall.
“We knew coming in our goal wasn’t to beat everybody, but to beat all the 1A teams in the field. At the end of the season, these are the teams we need to see and race against. We have seen Hayesville twice and will see them two more times before State, we may get a chance to race against these teams again,” he wrote in an email.
The girls’ team was led by Annie Lewis, who got a time of 19:33 – one second off from a personal record and placing 35th out of 206 in the Championship race. Angel Lomelli got 20:43 for 70th place, while Audrey Monteith got a new personal record of 21:29, placing 96th.
The girls finished 14th out of 29 teams overall in that race.
Then the boys stepped up, with Carl Baird leading the race for the second week in a row, getting a time of 16:58. Kane Jones got 17:09 while Connor Brown finished with 17:17.
On Monday, Sept. 25, as the team practiced at Kituwah, Baird said Hare and the Hound had been “a good meet,” praising his team for doing an “overall good run.”
Marden Harvey, who got a time of 22:37 in the race last weekend, said they were working on getting all the girls under 23 minutes this season, while Monteith said it “felt good” to get a new personal record.
The Maroon Devils’ next race is in Charlotte yet again, for the Wendy’s Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 7.