Milton Dominates at Furman Invitational

Varsity Girls Win 1st Place
With a score of 90 points

Varsity Girls Before Race
Coach Carr in front with his "W" shirt to represent "W" (AKA Coach Warner) in his absence!

Varsity Boys Win 5th Place
With a score of 162 points

Varsity Boys Before Race
Coach Carr in front with his "W" shirt to represent "W" (AKA Coach Warner) in his absence!

JV Boys Win 1st Place
With a score of 20 points

JV Boys Before Race

JV Girls Win 1st Place
With a score of 19 points

JV Girls Before Race

The Milton Eagle Cross Country teams traveled to Greenville, SC for their annual overnite trip and to compete in the 38th running of the Furman University Invitational Cross Country Meet held on the school’s golf course, the site of two NCAA championship meets and were rewarded with some great team finishes and many strong individual performances.

JV Girls
To follow-up their amazing 2nd place finish at the Fulton County meet a week ago, the JV Lady Eagles continued their strong team running with a solid 4th place (113 pts) finish (just missing third to The Bowles School-109 pts) out of 23 scoring teams. Solid team pack running was the main factor in Milton’s high finish. The Lady Eagles were led by Samantha Rate’s 23:02 run good for 12th place in a field of 290 runners. Samantha started with the Lady Eagle pack and steadily moved up the entire race just missing the top-10. Milton’s pack was strong as evidenced by their tight finish. Leading the group was Julia Campolong (24th-23:39) whose outstanding 2nd half of the race really helped the Lady Eagles stay together and finish very strong. Coming in just behind Julia was a freight-train of Eagle runners: Katie Winkel-27th, 23:46, Lauren Schmidt-29th, 23:47, senior co-captain Kelsey Campolong-30th, 23:48, and Maddy Hassett-33rd, 23:54. Rounding out the top-7 was a strong run by Meredith Naylor (66th).

JV Boys
Going into this meet the JV Eagles had lost only to one team (Walton) all season and their top-team finishes continued with an incredible runner-up finish (94 pts) losing only to power-house Parkview (21pts) which dominated the race. Milton’s 2nd place bested 25 other schools including strong programs from Georgia schools that included Chapel Hill, Alexander, Grayson and Harrison. This is a significant team result for the JV Eagles! This group showed great patience in their race and were not phased by the large field (374 runners) and steadily moved up the entire race to place it’s top-7 runners in the first 35 finishers and only had a spread of 32 seconds between them! Leading this group was senior Travis Turner (10th-18:42) who rebounded well after his race at the county meet a week ago. Senior co-captain Ryan Winkel followed (15th-18:52) running again close to his all-time best. Freshman sensation Anthony Machan continued to impress with his gutsy 20th place effort (18:55). The Eagles then saw the next 4 finishers in a span of 8 seconds with senior Brandon Halls (26th-19:07), Andrew Barris (27th-19:08), Jody Hirschi (30th-19:12) and the surprising John Britt Easterling (32nd-19:14).

Varsity Girls
Even running without their number one runner, the Lady Eagles ran a very strong team race and kept some of the tough Georgia teams in sight and finished a very respectable 12th (338 pts) out of 41 scoring teams. Leading the way for Milton was the freshmen, who were the story of the day as these ladies finished as Milton’s top scorers! Rebounding after a tough race the week before at the County Championships, freshman Heather Harman looked and ran strong the entire race and her performance (48th-21:47) was close to an all-time best and led the Lady Eagles. The freshman duo of Amanda Lockwood (65th-22:05) and Lindsay Gruca (66th-22:05) followed and caught Stephanie Butzer right at the line (67th-22:06) after she had fallen about halfway through the race. Smart & tough running most of the race by Cori Deutsch (100th-22:38) kept the Milton pack together but eventually senior co-captain Jamie Chandler (97th-22:34) caught Cori near the finish with her terrific stretch run over the last 600 meters.

Varsity Boys
The last race of the day proved to be the warmest and it affected the Eagle runners but some strong performances led Milton to an 8th place (274 pts) in a field of 45 schools. Tyler Tomy continued his outstanding season with a hard-fought 12th place finish in a field of 306. Tyler was in the lead pack for the majority of the 1st half of the race and held on for a good finish. Large gaps in the Eagle team were the story of the race as senior co-captain Fraser Reade followed (36th-17:48) Tyler. Hamstring and ankle issued bothered senior Ryan Price but his 18:06 performance brought him in at 65th place. The Alex’s ran most of the way together with senior Alex Keeter (75th-18:14) besting sophomore Alex Salvatierra (86th-18:19). Senior Adam Zucker ran a very solid 18:42 (120th) and senior Seth Tomy concluded the Milton finishers (164th).

The Milton Cross Country teams next travel to Gainesville College this weekend for one of the team’s favorite meets, the Coach Wood Invitational where Milton has done very well these past few years and expects to do the same this time around.