The McCallie Cross Country Team has traveled to Virginia and Florida this season to test their line-up against top competition. At the Virginia pre state meet in September McCallie finished an impressive runner up and on Saturday the team ran in the Florida pre state meet in Tallahassee against the top teams from Florida and other states.
McCallie raced to an 8th place finish in the Elite Division. 70 schools were represented at the meet hosted by Florida State University. Samuel Ligon led McCallie with a time of 16:16 on the 5K course. He was followed closely by teammates Dylan Zeller and John Arrowsmith both in 16:18.
Duke Richey ran number 4 for McCallie in 16:47 with Benjamin Niehaus completing McCallie’s top 5 scorers with a time of 16:57. Brown Hayes ran 17:31 with Patrick Kushman in 17:44 for 6th and 7th McCallie runners.
McCallie head coach Mike Wood was pleased with the results and the meet.
“This has been a fun trip with the guys and it was topped off with a solid effort and a number of personal best performances. The course and competition was incredible.
They had a water truck on the course before the race to keep the dust down and brought out a steamroller to roll the grass over the final 200 meters and the race was shown live on a jumbo screen at the finish line. Just an extraordinary experience for our boys to run in a quality event against top teams and we were pleased to have
Samuel, Dylan and John pack so well and both Duke and Benjamin run sub 17 minutes.” The meet was held at Apalachee Park which host the NCAA Regional Cross Country Championship and the race was streamed live.
McCallie will race in the Chattanooga Area Championship on October 17th. The Blue Tornado will compete for their 5th consecutive title and 9th in the past 10 years in the Chattanooga Area Cross Country Championship.