Rome High boys earn top-10 finish at state meet

Patrick Motes leads the Wolves in the Class 5A state championship race Friday in Carrollton.

A week after winning its second straight Region 7-5A title, the Rome High boys’ cross country team capped its season Friday with a top-10 finish in the GHSA boys’ Class 5A state championship race in Carrollton.

Patrick Motes finished with a time of 17:59 to come in 27th overall and help the Wolves earn ninth place in the team standings with a total of 296 points. Rome’s next top finisher was Esdras Real, who finished with a time of 18:14 and came in 42nd.

It was an improvement for the Wolves, who finished 12th overall last year and continue to work towards finding a spot in the top four and on the podium.

In the girls’ race, Rome’s Nora Bailey led the Lady Wolves with a time of 22:07, finishing 43rd in the field of nearly 200 runners. She was followed by Kaitlyn Stahl, who posted a time of 22:59 to finish in 59th place. Rome came in 13th in the team standings.

In the Class A Private races, Darlington’s Lawson Blake and Landon Liddle had the best finishes of any runners in Floyd County on Friday as they pushed the Tigers to an 11th-place finish in the boys’ race.

The two finished neck-and-neck, with Blake crossing the finish line 21st in a time of 18:42.53, two-tenths of a second ahead of Liddle, who came in 22nd.

Maggie Hawkins was the top runner for the Lady Tigers in the girls’ race as she completed the 5K race in 22:43 for 30th overall. Teammate Ashley Hankinson was next for Darlington as she finished in 24:09 for 55th place.

The Lady Tigers came in 13th in the team standings.

The GHSA State Cross Country Championships continue today with several Floyd County teams competing in the Class AA races beginning at 9:30 a.m. with the boys’ race, followed by the girls.