It may have been just a little bit warmer than most of the high school cross country runners would have liked, but they still turned in some pretty good times in the weekly meet, which was held at Baylor Thursday afternoon.
Josie Grube, that bubbly German exchange student who has been running unattached up to this point, was the winner in the girls race with a time of 19 minutes, 14 seconds for the 5k distance as she proudly wore her Ooltewah singlet after finally clearing all of the eligibility issues.
Emily Poole of Heritage made a big move in the final stretch to beat Baylor's Grace Carlson as they finished with times of 19:20 and 19:22, respectively.
Heritage teammates Alex Gass and Noor Sabeeh finished fifth and sixth with times of 19:53 and 20:10 while Baylor's second finisher was Rachel Schatzman in seventh with a time of 20:19.
Those finishes were the difference as Heritage finished first among the girls teams with 50 points.
Baylor was a close second with 52 while Carly Braman finished ninth to spark GPS to a third-place finish with 69 points.
Baylor's Jackson Goodwin ran with a pack that included Chattanooga Christian's Gus Whitman and McMinn County's Logan McKenzie for the first half of the race, but by the time they emerged from the woods for the second time as they began their sprint toward the finish, Goodwin was all alone as he finished first with a time of 16 minutes, 17 seconds.
Whitman was second in 16:26 while McKenzie was third in 16:33.
The team competition among the guys wasn't nearly as close as Baylor used a 5-6-7 finish from John Carlson, Alex Sumida and Anders Pokela to easily beat runner-up Dalton, 37-104. Coahulla Creek was a close third with 107.
Grube and Carlson were side-by-side as they came by the Baylor Lake for the final time, but Grube started separating herself from the Baylor redhead as they zipped up that slight incline before making a left toward the finish line.
"Today was better than last week because I had two awesome girls with me today. My goal was to break 19 minutes today, but it just didn't work out. But I'm so happy to be running for Ooltewah," she concluded with a big grin.
Poole waited for just the right moment to make her move, but when she did, it appeared that she caught Carlson by surprise.
"It was hot out there, but I love running on this course," the Heritage senior smiled.
"I was pushed by Grace and Josie, but I started picking up my pace in the third mile. I had them in might sights the whole way," she added.
Carlson may have been a little disappointed to lose by a nose at the end, but she didn't show it as she still recorded a personal best by four seconds.
"It was hot, but things got better as the race went on. There was some really competition here today. I stayed with Josie as long as possible, but that last hill got me. She pulled away at that point and I just couldn't keep up, but I've been working really hard on pushing hard that last tenth of a mile and I'm really happy with my time today," she said in her usual soft tone.
Goodwin used a little bit different race strategy on Thursday and it paid off as he won by nine seconds.
"I stayed behind the leaders for the first mile before making my move over there by the softball field. I was feeling pretty good at that point, but I was a little bit worried about the guy from Chattanooga Christian. He was pretty close," the Baylor senior remembered.
"Jackson got me today. I think I may have started picking up my pace a little too soon as I wanted to be a little faster. But overall, I feel pretty good about my race," the 18-year-old Whitman allowed.
McKenzie also acknowledged that the first mile was slower than he normally runs, but what a payoff he received after improving on his best time by some 40 seconds.
"Our first mile was slow, but it turned out to be a fast race. I felt pretty good considering how hard I've been working in recent weeks. We had a tough workout on Tuesday where we did 16 repeats of 300 meters in 48 seconds, but today was a really good race for me," he added.
NEXT WEEK'S RACE will be held at Chickamauga Dam while the final race of the season where everyone will be competing takes place at Baylor on Oct. 16 with the Front Runner Invitational.
Regional races follow the next week while the TSSAA State Meet will again be held at Percy Warner Park in Nashville on Saturday, November 1.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@Comcast.net)