Hawk runners run for state championships Friday

The Blackhawks’ varsity cross country season for the team will come to an end Friday as the boys and girls are competing in the 4A State Championships in Hot Springs midday this Friday.

The boys are coming off a state title in 2020 though several key runners from that team graduated this past spring. Coach Heather Wade has done a good job with training up the next generation with the current boys team ranked as a contender for the top spot.

The girls were runner-up in 2020 and also lost several key runners, but like the boys, they have elevated their game and have improved steadily throughout the 2021 season.

DeQueen from south Arkansas is the boys’ meet favorite with the Hawks the only team with a chance to run down the perennial power. Using the ranking system, the Hawks actually have a 1-point edge over DeQueen through three runners, but DeQueen’s fourth and fifth runner have been the best fourth and fifth runners in the state so far. As a matter of fact, the top times of the first through fifth best DeQueen runners are only 49 seconds apart.

Of course, times before the state meet don’t count and bringing the best from all the state together for one big race changes the climate. There are those who perform well when the pressure is not great but not so well when the pressure amps up. There have been teams given no chance to be competitive in state meets past have been surprise winners.

The boys have a young team with no seniors in the top five scorers. Junior Grandon Grant is ranked fourth in the state with sophomore brother Tian right behind him ranked fifth. Sophomore Trey Ferguson is highly ranked, coming in at ninth with the Hawks’ usual fourth and fifth runners, Sebasttien Mullikin and Jacob Stein, ranked 25th and 42nd from among the 307 runners in 4A. Top freshman runner Trey Bounds has been moved up the varsity and could be surprising.

Having run cross country on the collegiate level with Harding University and having coached the sport, this is a really good sport to test someone’s mettle. Our coach always hoped for bad weather or poor conditions because we were trained for it. The old saying “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” had to be describing cross country. One of the best races my college team ever ran was in freezing rain, causing a lot of other teams to gripe and fume. We took the first seven places, which we probably would not have done on a good day.

On the girls’ side, the championship seems to be coming down to between Pea Ridge and Valley View. The Blazers were run away winners in 2020 when the Lady Hawks claimed second. This year, Valley View is favored to repeat, but the gap has been narrowing throughout the year.

Gravette and Clarksville have been considered contenders for high finishers, but are weak in their fourth and fifth runners to really be competitive in a large field of runners like we will see in Hot Springs. Valley View’s strength is having five runners that can run within two minutes of each other.

Sophomore RyLee Raines has come on of late to be ranked seventh in the Arkansas 4A state. Senior Liz Vasques has been steady all season with an 11th ranking with fellow senior Kamree Dye holding down the 13th slot. Ava Pippen is ranked 37th with Allie King ranked 58th from among the 300 runners in the state.

The girls have steadily improved throughout the year, with Valley Views’ 30-point ranking edge a few weeks ago reduced to just 15 in the latest posting,77-92. No other team looks close to breaking 100.

The Hawks have had a good competitive season, winning a lot but not every meet. You are only as good as who you run with and competing with bigger schools will toughen runners mentally.

While the boys had a solid win at district last week, if a runner had gone down, it could have ended differently. By contrast, DeQueen wiped out their district by scoring a perfect 15 points, claiming the first seven places in their 4A-7 Championship. The girls chief competitor Valley View, had the same experience in their 4A-3 District Championship, as they placed their first five in the top five to also get a perfect score.

Clarksville is on the verge of having a great girls team, having the first, fourth and 15th ranked runners in the state. However, their 5th runner ranks 78th, which is higher than the whole Valley View team put together.

The meet Friday will be interesting, wish I could be there. The boys and girls have excellent chances to add to the State Meet/ Tournament hardware they have been accumulating lately. When I arrived at Pea Ridge in 1998, there were but two state trophies that Pea Ridge had to display, one in baseball and one in cross country. That number has increased dramatically since 2016 and I expect that will likely continue.

Good to great.

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Editor’s note: John McGee, an award-winning columnist, sports writer and art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, writes a regular sports column for The Times. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. He can be contacted through The Times at prtnews@nwadg.com.