The Milton High School Cross Country teams traveled to Gainesville College in Oakwood, GA to compete in the 5th annual Reebok Coach Wood Invitational hosted by Mill Creek & Dacula High Schools and came away with their most successful results of the season to date.

Varsity Girls
The Lady Eagles were looking for redemption this week after a disappointing 5th place finish the previous week at the Fulton County meet and came up with their best team race of the season. Milton dropped 30 seconds on their season best time average (21:00) and WON the varsity girls division (79 pts.) over 20 other schools! The meet win was also special for the Lady Eagles as they were able to turn the tables on both Chattahoochee (2nd-90 pts.) and Centennial (3rd-101 pts.) who had beaten them at Fulton County. As she has done all season, freshman Lauren Jones led the way for Milton. Lauren ran another all-time best (20:11) to finish 7th! Chelsea Weiermiller followed suit and also ran another all-time best (20:54) in finishing 13th. The victory for Milton came with the strong “pack” and team running of Jamie Chandler (18th), Stephanie Butzer (20th) and Cori Deutsch (21st).
Also running varsity for the Lady Eagles were:
39. Susannah Hardy
49. Anika Scholz
57. Samantha Rate
60. Monique Rollocks
91. MC Durham

Varsity Boys
Coming off a very narrow victory the previous week at Fulton County, the Eagles were fired up for stronger team and individual performances at this very fast course. As they did in 2006, Milton finished as the runner-up (71 pts.) to the very strong Alexander team (ranked 5th-AAAA) by only 10 points (61 pts.). Milton continued to best Centennial (3rd-119 pts.) and Chattahoochee (4th-124 pts.) and showed they improved from their previous meet result at Fulton County. Leading the Eagles as he has done all season was Tyler Tomy. His runner-up finish was just reward as Tyler kept it close the entire way and led during the race multiple times. Up-front presence again brought Milton a top finish with Seth Tomy (5th) and senior co-captain Christian Scholz (10th). Another incredible, come-from-behind run by Mitchell Foley (22nd), as he passed as many as 70 runners during the race and a terrific performance by Alex Keeter (34th) brought the Eagles home for 2nd. Also running varsity for Milton were:
37. Fraser Reade
39. Ryan Price
42. Brian Parsons
53. Alex Salvatierra
74. Travis Turner

JV Girls
The JV Lady Eagles bounced back after their poor performance a week ago to come away with a well-earned and trophy winning 3rd place (106 pts.) out of a field of 11 schools. The trophy was well-earned as Milton was tied with Centennial after both teams had 5 runners finish. So, to determine the 3rd place team, the finish of the team’s 6th runner would decide the outcome and Milton prevailed as Melissa Tillitski (31st adjusted) outdistanced Centennial’s #6 runner (38th)! The Lady Eagles were beaten the previous week by Centennial and this was a nice redemption for Milton. Senior Maddie Cook was the Lady Eagle’s top finisher (15th). What followed was an outstanding team effort that secured 3rd place for Milton. Katie Winkel (22nd), Audrey Grichting (23rd), Christina Bins (27th) and Rachel Gravelee (29th) were the strong “pack” that led the Lady Eagles to best Centennial. Also running the timed JV race for Milton were:
33. Kathleen Smith
38. Allison Strach
40. Selina Chan
53. Meredith Naylor

JV Boys
After a disappointing 3rd place at Fulton County a week ago, the JV Eagles were also out for a better team finish and some redemption on the teams that bested them a week ago. Milton did not leave anything for chance and dominated the race by WINNING the JV race (47 pts.) easily outdistancing Marist (66 pts.), Centennial (73 pts, who won Fulton County a week ago) and the always strong Parkview squad (107 pts.)!! The Eagles triumphed over a field of 16 schools. Junior Brandon Halls (5th) and sophomore Joe Hogg (6th) were up front the entire race and set the tone for a high Milton finish. Backing them up was the continued great “pack” of Eagle runners (Jody Hirschi-10th, Bryan Pike-12th, John-Britt Easterling-14th and David Hasslinger-17th).
Also running the timed JV race for Milton were:
25. Ryan Thurman
28. Ryan Winkel
34. John Greenwood
35. Travis Schmidt

JV/Open Race
Due to the large amount of entrants in the JV races the meet has a JV/open race at the end of the day for all teams that have more runners that can be accommodated in the earlier races that are contested. No team scores were kept or official results tabulated. Many strong individual performances were recorded by Milton runners and the Eagle top-finishers are listed below:

Boys:
Open Boys
Andrew Funari 19:01
Taylor Earley 19:31
Adam Zucker 19:34
Will Anderson 19:39
Jordan Cleare 19:40
Ryan Guilbault 19:41
Hari Masoor 19:50

Girls:
Open Girls
Mariana Hernandez 24:50
Talie Watzman 24:54
Shannon Sevcik 25:07
Megan Monahan 25:11
Linda Ladaga 25:12
Hannah Coyle 25:18

The Milton High School Cross Country teams traveled across town to Webb Bridge Park to compete in the Fulton County Public Schools Cross Country Championships this past Saturday and came away with one team title and many outstanding individual performances.

Open/JV Race
New this year to the meet schedule, and in order to alleviate the crowded JV races, this race was added for any team that had more than 17 JV runners entered in the meet. Milton runners were the majority of the field and thus the Eagles dominated the race. Milton placed 8 boys in the top-9 positions to sweep the boy’ race. Leading the Eagles was an overall win by Bryan Pike who was followed closely by David Hasslinger running a season best. Contributing to the sweep were Travis Schmidt, John Greenwood and Adam Zucker. Strong runs by Ryan Guilbault, Ben Schwartz and Chris Chernick closed out the sweep for Milton.

In the girls race, Milton’s dominance continued with an overall win by Meredith Naylor. The Lady Eagles followed the boys with taking the top-12 spots!! Great performances were turned in by Alison Strach, Sarah Seanor, Brynn Weiermiller, Kelly Brodalski, Marianna Hernandez, Talie Watzman, and Hannah Coyle.

Girls JV
The JV Lady Eagles knew they would have a tough race on their hands but did their best against some strong competition. Milton finished a distant 5th besting Alpharetta and Riverwood. Leading the Lady Eagles was the pair of Anika Scholz and Samantha Rate. The two ran together most of the race and finished 17th & 18th. Strong performances were turned in by senior co-captain MC Durham (22nd) and an all-time best by Christina Bins (33rd-23:48)! Also scoring for Milton were Audrey Grichting (36th), Maddie Cook (39th) and Melissa Tillitski (52nd)

Boys JV
The defending Fulton County Champions were simply out-run and out-matched as the Eagles finished 3rd (52 pts) out of 7 teams. Even with 4 runners in the top 11, Centennial (40) and Chattahoochee (42) were able to best Milton. Leading the Eagles was Frasier Reade. Frasier kept it close the entire race and almost had a shot to win but ended up an impressive 3rd. Freshman Alex Salvatierra followed in 8th with the steadily improving Travis Turner (9th) right behind him. Contributing to the 3rd place finish was another outstanding effort by Ryan Thurman (11th), Joe Hogg (21st), Jody Hirschi (22nd) and Brandon Halls (23rd).

Varsity Girls
With 2 top-10 ranked teams in AAAAA in the field, along with a much improved Alpharetta squad, the Lady Eagles ran one of their best team races this season (21:31 average-best of season) but were easily beaten and finished 5th of 8 teams. The once 10th ranked Milton Eagles (96 pts) were outpaced by 8th ranked Centennial (54), Alpharetta (61), Chattahoochee (79), and 10th ranked Roswell (90). Leading Milton was another all-time best (20:35) and 6th place finish by freshman Lauren Jones. Her performance put her on the All County 1st team. Following for the Lady Eagles was another all-time best (21:12) by Chelsea Weiermiller (12th). Milton’s pack materialized but unfortunately it was just a little too late. But strong performances were turned in by Cori Deutsch (23rd), Jamie Chandler (26th) and Stephanie Butzer (29th). Also running for Milton were seniors Susannah Hardy (41st) and Monique Rollocks (23:06).

Varsity Boys
Again, the defending Fulton County Champs were more than ready for the challenge of the much-improved Centennial Knights & arch-rivals Roswell Hornets and the team race went right down to the wire! The Milton Eagles (57) pulled out a 1 point victory over Centennial (58) & Roswell (58) with their up-front presence and strong finishes! Leading the Eagles was Tyler Tomy. Running the entire race in the top-4, Tyler made a bid for the win with about 600m to go but could not hold off Spencer Keel of Roswell. His 16:54 was good for 2nd place! His teammates followed and sealed the win for Milton. Brother Seth Tomy (6th) and the hard-charging Christian Scholz (7th) really made the 1 point victory happen as Christian passed Centennial’s #2 runner in the final few steps of the race! After a runner-up finish at a national boxing championship, Mitchell Foley was right back without missing a beat. Running a 17:50, his fastest time of the season, Mitchell finished an outstanding 16th. Ryan Price continued his solid season with a 25th place finish to round out the scoring for the champion Eagles! An inspiring run by senior Brian Parsons (lost shoe at the half mile mark and later put it back on at the 2 mile mark) led to a lot of “what if’s?” and how well could he have done if he had his shoe for the entire race? The final varsity runner for Milton was Alex Keeter (42nd).

The Milton Cross Country teams next travel to the fast and fun course at Gainesville (GA) College on Saturday, October 20th for the annual Coach Wood Invitational hosted by Dacula High School. This meet is one many of the Eagle runners look forward to every season for the fast course, cool t-shirt and Milton’s history of success and high finishes.