The Milton Cross Country teams headed to Dunwoody to participate in the unique Nike Class Clash at the Marist School last Saturday and came away with many great individual performances.

Overall Team Results
The 6 competing schools were divided into 2 teams: The Black Team of Marist, South Paulding and Milton pitted against the White Team of Northview, North Forsyth and Blessed Trinity. Also unique to this race is that the girls start their race only 4 minutes before the boys start and the scores are tabulated by the first 12 runners from each of the 2 teams to finish, boy or girl. In the overall score the Black Team won 275-325 combining the boy’s and girl’s scores. The White team won the very close girl’s race 145-155 but the boy’s race was dominated by the Black Team 120-180 thus securing the overall team victory.

Varsity Girls
With Milton resting their varsity runners for the upcoming region meet next Thursday, the Lady Eagles toed the line with their top-JV athletes and made a very respectable showing racing against 5 other team’s varsity athletes. Milton finished 4th (107 pts) besting North Forsyth (115 pts) and South Paulding. Leading the Lady Eagles was an all-time best of 22:40 (17th) by Brynn Weiermiller. Brynn got out well and continued to pass runners the entire race on the way to her all-time PR! Finishing their strong seasons, Samantha Rate (20th-23:11), Julia Campolong (21st-23:25) and freshman Lauren Schmidt (22nd-23:34) made up Milton’s pack. Also running the varsity race were Rachel Gravlee (27th), Maddy Hassett (28th) and Allie Amos (34th).

Varsity Boys
Like the girls, the Eagle’s varsity runners rested for the upcoming region race on Thursday so Milton’s top-JV athletes rose to the challenge and raced with varsity athletes from 4 other schools and came away with a amazing 4th place finish (81 pts) narrowly losing to Blessed Trinity’s JV (72 pts). Marist totally dominated the affair winning with 19 pts with Northview 2nd (65 pts). The Eagles bested North Forsyth (5th-147 pts) and South Paulding (6th-185 pts) varsity squads!! Leading the way for Milton was a true team effort as senior Adam Zucker (13th-18:40) led the Eagles as all-7 teammates finished in a span of only 25 seconds! Following Adam’s performance was senior co-captain Ryan Winkel running another solid effort (15th-18:43). Jody Hirschi (16th-18:44) and freshman Anthony Machan (17th-18:51) followed closely behind and were supported by Andrew Barris (20th-19:01), and seniors Brandon Halls (22nd-19:02) and Andrew Funari (25th-19:07).

JV Girls
The Lady Eagles showed their consistency again with another strong finish to back up their performances at County and Coach Wood with a solid 3rd place showing (63pts) losing to Northview (2nd-43 pts) and winner host Marist (35 pts) and besting Blessed Trinity (4th-84 pts). Moving up the entire race and passing many runners in the last mile, Meredith Naylor finished in an outstanding 5th place (23:10) running an all-time best and just getting nipped at the line by the 4th place finisher! Her performance was followed by a season’s best by Anika Scholz (9th-23:33) and a 2nd best all time performance by senior Christina McLeod (12th-23:35). An inspiring run by Lisa Bluth (17th-24:04) as she passed as many as 10 runners in the last mile (5 alone in the last 400m) to almost snag Northview’s #5 runner and thus kept it close in the team scoring! Rounding out the scoring for Milton was another impressive run by Elizabeth Bunn (23rd-24:29) as she also moved through the field the entire race.

JV Boys
The depth and strength of the Eagle boy’s team showed with a 2nd place (66 pts) besting Northview (76pts), Blessed Trinity (85 pts) and North Forsyth (155 pts) losing only to host Marist who scored a perfect 15pts. Team running propelled Milton to the runner-up finish as John Britt Easterling led the charge (10th-19:12) and was followed by 6 more Milton runners in a span of only 11 seconds!! Joe Hogg (12th-19:21), Chris Chernick (13th-19:24), Ryan Guilbault (14th-19:27) and Boyd Guttery (17th-19:30) concluded the scoring for Milton. An outstanding run by Justin Jackson (18th-19:31) and David Hasslinger (19th-19:32) concluded the top-7 finishers for the Eagles.

Next up for Milton is the Region 6-AAAAA meet (for varsity runners) on Thursday, Oct 30th on the Corps of Engineers Property in Acworth, GA to determine the region representatives for the Nov 8th GHSA State Meet to be held at Carrollton ES. The top-4 teams and top-6 individuals will qualify from the region meet to the state meet. The region race will include the following teams: Roswell, Alpharetta, Centennial, Pope, Kell, Wheeler, Walton, Campbell, Lassiter and Milton.

On September 22, 2007, the Milton High School Cross Country teams traveled to the Marist School to compete in the unique and different NIKE Marist Class Clash. This format pitted 3 schools, teamed together, from 3 different classifications against 3 other schools, teamed together from the same 3 different classifications. NIKE also outfitted the varsity squads of the 6 competing schools with special Red & Blue uniforms. The races were run “clash” style with two opposite starting lines where the runners would run at each other to a given point and then merge together into one race field. In the varsity races the girls started first with the boys following 4 minutes later with the scores coming from the first 15 runners (boy or girl) from each of the 2 teams (Red & Blue) that cross the finish line thus making for some exciting finishes!

In the overall varsity clash race, the combined Red team (Milton, Blessed Trinity & host Marist) easily outscored the combined Blue team (Northview-girls, Brookwood-boys, Greenbriar & West Forsyth). Separated out, the varsity boys Red team scored a 54-130 point win as Brookwood did not run their top varsity and the varsity girls Red team also easily outdistanced the Blue team, 59-121.

Varsity Girls Race
The Milton Lady Eagles ran a very strong race and kept it close for a while but in the end Blessed Trinity again showed why they are one of the top teams in the state as they easily won (32 points). Milton kept it close and finished 3rd with 73 points losing a close battle with Marist (65). The Lady Eagles easily dispatched West Forsyth (113), rival Northview (125) and AAA power Greenbriar (133). Leading the way for Milton was again freshman Lauren Jones. Her 4th place finish after falling in the first turn of the race showed she was ready to race up front. Chelsea Weiermiller followed in 14th with a strong effort after sitting out Warpath on September 8th. The Lady Eagles strong “pack” was in evidence as Cori Deutsch (16th), Susannah Hardy (19th), Jamie Chandler (20th) and Stephanie Butzer (22nd) followed and rounded out the scoring.

Varsity Boys Race
The Eagles showed they belonged in this meet and made their presence shown with 4 runners in the top-12. Winning his 2nd race of the season, Tyler Tomy bided his time and made a decisive move with about 500 meters to go and ran 17:30 to claim the title! Brother Seth Tomy shows he is rounding into great shape with his 6th place finish (17:40). Milton scorers also included Christian Scholz (12th), an outstanding race by Mitchell Foley (14th), Alex Keeter (21st) and Brian Parsons (25th). The Eagles finished 3rd as a team but it was close! The Eagles scored 54 points to lose to Blessed Trinity (45) and host Marist (50). Milton easily outdistanced Greenbriar (103), a depleted Brookwood squad (132) and the new West Forsyth Wolverines (259-unadjusted score).

JV Boys Race
The JV races were run in a traditional format (scoring) but still employed the “clash” start. Following in Tyler Tomy’s footsteps, first-year runner Fraser Reade made the Milton boys 2-for-2 as he triumphed and won the JV race! Senior Ryan Thurman had his best race in possibly 2 seasons with his 4th place finish to also pace the Eagles. During most of the race, Milton did not look like they could be victorious. Leading the charge very late in the race and bringing the Eagles to the front were some fantastic performances by Jody Hirschi (7th-passing as many as 10 runners in the last 600 meters), Taylor Early (14th-using his great hurdling experience and strong kick to pass many runners in the final 400 meters) and the hard-charging John Britt Easterling (18th and followed Taylor as he passed many also in the last 400 meters). Those big moves late in the race gave Milton the JV win (44 points) besting Marist, Brookwood and Blessed Trinity by a big margin!

JV Girls Race
After a slow start the Lady JV Eagles were in an uphill battle all the way and were soundly beaten by Northview and Marist. Leading Milton was first-year cross country runner Samantha Rate (10th) who ran most of the race in contention for a top-7 finish. The Lady Eagle “pack” was in force as the following runners had terrific races and scored for Milton: Olivia Tusa (15th) again ran a strong race. She was closely followed by the surprising run by Christina Bins (16th), the hard-charging Kelsey Campolong (17th) and the ever-resilient Katie Winkel (18th).

The Milton Eagles next travel to Knoxville, Tennessee for the Knoxville TC Volunteer Classic. This will be the Eagles first trip to this well-established meet in Tennessee and they look forward to a great team-building and big-meet experience