Warriors place two runners in Region top 10
The Gordon Central High School cross country teams had one boy and one girl both finish in the top 10 at last week’s AA Region 7 championships at Georgia Highlands College in Rome.
The boys teams was fifth in the league with Model winning the Region trophy while the girls were fourth with Fannin County taking home the first place prize.
For the boys, Gordon Central junior Jose Lara was third in the meet behind a pair of distance runners from Model. Lara ran a 17:51.29 and was one of only five racers in the group of over 60 boys to finish in under 18 minutes.
Model junior Simon Schabort was the Region champ with a 17:19.83 and his senior teammate Zach Mickler was second with a 17:35.95.
That high finish gave the Blue Devils the inside track towards the region crown as those two places scored just three points. The other three Model distance runners involved in the scoring placed ninth, 10th, and 11th, respectively, for their 33 points.
Sophomore Alex Lara was next for the Warriors and 22nd overall with a 20:34.82 time.
Junior Saul Garcia was third for GC (21:33.90) and his teammate Jessie Ramirez was right after him (21:50.04) with senior Alejandro Onesto on both of their heels (21:58.59) as the team’s fifth runner.
Sophomore Camdon Miles, sophomore Ashton Henson, Junior Yostin Reyes, junior Abner Guardado, and junior Matthew Morraquin also ran at Region for the Warriors.
After Model, Fannin County was second in the region with 44 points but the Rebels were also impressive with all five of their runners placing in the top 15.
Dade County just edged out Coosa for third with DC earning 94 points with Coosa closing with 96. Dade County had a runner place 6th and Coosa’s top finisher was 13th and in the end that proved to be the difference.
Gordon Central was fifth with 118 points.
For the girls, freshman Kaity Hames was outstanding in her first-ever Region competition, placing sixth with a 23:01.76 time to pace the Warriors.
Junior Arlene Gutierrez was the team’s second runner in the top 20, coming in 18th officially (26:12.61).
The team’s next three runners were side-by-side-byside, placing in spots 30-32 in the region.
Sophomore Martha Ramirez was third for her team while junior Linsay Rojas was fourth and freshman Melanie Chiapas was fifth to complete the team scoring.
Freshman Katerine Queju Hernandez, junior Brianna Menchaca, freshman Lindsay Silva, freshman Aileen Reyes, and sophomore Kaydence Garland also ran at Region for Gordon Central.
On the strength of having five girls finish in the top dozen, Fannin County was the girls region team champ with 36 points.
Coosa sophomore Sophia Cook was the easy individual region champion, coming in two minutes ahead of second-place Jessie Schroeder of Model.
Cook ran a 19:47.75 for the only time under 21 minutes as Schroeder was the silver medalist, clocked at 21:49.25.
Coosa, besides having the individual champ, had three of the top nine places to come in second in the team standings with 46 points.
Model was third with 51 points and then Gordon Central finished with 114.