Boys
The Eagles are returning to the state meet! The Milton boy’s cross country team finished a strong 3rd (101 pts) out of 10 schools to qualify for the state meet. The 10th ranked Eagles fell to 5th ranked Walton (1st-46 pts) and 7th ranked Lassiter (2nd-65 points) and easily handled Centennial (4th-114 pts) and surprising Alpharetta (5th-122 pts). Tyler Tomy again was the top Milton finisher as he ran with the leaders most of the race and eventually finished 11th (16:50). Senior co-captain Fraser Reade followed (18th-17:04) in a very gutsy effort. Running their best race of the season, the two Alex’s (Alex Salvatierra 22nd-17:16 and senior Alex Keeter 24th-17:18) ran all-time bests! Senior Ryan Price was within 4 seconds of his all-time best finishing 26th (17:22). Seniors Seth Tomy (30th) and Travis Turner (43rd) concluded the Milton runners who qualified for the state meet.

Girls
The Lady Eagles finished an impressive 5th place (142 pts), besting 5 schools to conclude their season. Alpharetta (1st-56 pts) upset Walton (2nd-57 pts) by one point to win the meet! Roswell finished 3rd (92 pts) with Centennial 4th (129 pts). Running their best team average of the season (21:01) and with their smallest spread (29 seconds from their 1st to 5th runner), Milton contended for the last state qualifying spot the entire race! The freshman again were the story as the Lady Eagles were led by the trio of Heather Harman (22nd-20:48), Lindsay Gruca (23rd-20:50), and Amanda Lockwood (29th-21:02) all running lifetime bests! Backing up this group was a strong run from Stephanie Butzer (32nd-21:06) and another incredible finish by senior co-captain Jamie Chandler (36th-21:17) as she passed as many as 7 runners in the final 300 meters! Also contributing to the Lady Eagles were Junior Cori Deutsch (49th-22:04) and a gutsy finish for Junior Chelsea Weiermiller (61st at 22:53) recovering from her end of season injury.

The Milton cross country teams traveled to the familiar course of Boling Park in Canton, GA to compete in the Region 6-AAAAA cross country meet to determine the teams that will qualify for the State Meet to be held November 10th in Carrollton, GA. The Eagles came away with many all-time best performances and both varsity teams qualified for the state meet!

JV Girls
The first and coldest race of the day saw Milton running with all the Fulton County teams and the strong team of Walton from Cobb County. Even though the Lady Eagles had no runners in the top-15 many strong individual performances led Milton to a 6th place (149 pts) finish out of 11 teams. Walton scored a perfect 15 points to win easily followed by all the Fulton County teams in the region (Chattahoochee 2nd, 73 pts, Roswell 3rd, 83 points, Centennial 4th, 125 pts, and Northview 5th, 137 pts). Leading the way for Milton was the outstanding race by senior Christina Bins. Her 22:16 placed her 25th in a field of 217 and was her career best! Another senior, Maddie Cook followed in 28th in a season best time. Also scoring for the Lady Eagles were Anika Scholz (32nd-22:31), an all-time best for Audrey Grichting (39th-22:40) and a career best by 15 seconds for senior Melissa Tillitski (41st-22:44). Senior co-captain MC Durham ended her 4 year career at Milton with an outstanding 22:49 (43rd) and closing out the Lady Eagles top-7 was Katie Winkel (63rd).

JV Boys
Going into the region race, the Milton JV boys were excited from their win at Coach Wood two weeks before and wanted to carry that momentum to a high finish and they achieved that goal. The Eagles beat a very talented and strong Lassiter squad (3rd-97 pts) by finishing as runner-ups (2nd-70 pts) to the perfect score of 15 for the Raiders of Walton. Up front yet again for Milton was another amazing performance and all-time best for Fraser Reade. His 7th place finish (17:27) broke up Walton’s top-7 to prevent the perfect sweep. Great pack running brought the Eagles another trophy-winning performance. Freshman Alex Salvatierra (13th-17:49), Jody Hirschi (25th-18:17), Travis Turner (26th-18:17) and Joe Hogg (28th-18:19) were the placers that brought Milton to finish 2nd! Also figuring in for the scoring for the Eagles were senior Ryan Thurman (42nd-18:34) and an all-time best by Ryan Winkel (66th-19:04). 290 runners finished the race.

Varsity Girls
After a strong win at Coach Wood two weeks ago, the Lady Eagles felt their chances to make the state meet were better but also knew that it would take a career-best effort by the team to qualify. After finishing 5th at Fulton County, Milton re-grouped and focused on this race to best 2 of the 4 teams that beat them at the county meet. The Lady Eagles ran many strong individual performances and those led them to a state qualifying 4th place (130 pts)!! Lauren Jones continued her amazing season by finally breaking 20 minutes and also qualifying for the state meet as an individual with her 6th place finish with 19:33 (the Milton cross country record is 19:26-Megan Hirschi in 2006)! She stayed with the top-group the entire race and bested Walton’s #3 and the #1 runners from 7 schools! Chelsea Weiermiller followed (13th-20:05) and actually ran faster than Lauren’s previous best time! Except for Walton (1st-33 pts) and Roswell (2nd-106 pts) most schools had very bad team races and the race for the final 2 qualifying spots literally came down to most teams’ 5th runner! Centennial finished 3rd (113 pts) and the Lady Eagles turned back a strong run by Lassiter (5th-137 pts) and the 10th-ranked Alpharetta Raiders (6th-144 pts).
With large spreads among most of the teams very few packs of runners finished together and Milton was no exception. Jamie Chandler ran a season best of 20:30 (30th) and Stephanie Butzer followed (34th-20:49). The Lady Eagles 5th runner was Cori Deutsch and her near all-time best of 21:20 (48th) was enough to get them to next week’s state meet! Seniors Susannah Hardy (52nd-21:32) and Monique Rollocks (68th-22:41) also contributed to the qualifying effort! This will be, at the least, the 5thth straight trip to the state meet for the Lady Eagles. Their past state meet finishes were 7th in 2003, 14th in 2004, 13th in 2005 and 9th in 2006.

Varsity Boys
With all the top-7 returning from the 2006 squad, the Eagles saw this race as a chance to try and stay with the 5th ranked Lassiter Trojans as a prelude to running at the state meet and that is what transpired. Milton again qualified for the state meet with a repeat 3rd place finish (106 pts) losing to Walton (1st-54 pts) and Lassiter (2nd-82 pts). Centennial will also head to the state meet (4th-150 pts) losing to the Eagles by the largest margin this season!! Sophomore Tyler Tomy once again ran #1 for Milton. He stayed close to the top 5 the entire race in a field that will dominate at the state meet (4 individual qualifiers from this meet will probably all finish in the top-10 at the state meet). Tyler finished 8th in an all-time best of 16:21 (a 25-second improvement over his best time previous). The Tomys continued to be 1-2 for the Eagles as Seth Tomy again ran #2 and finished in an all-time best of 16:46 (13th). But the race of the day was the one run by senior Brian Parsons. With a season best time of 18:01 coming into this meet, Brian showed his true ability and ran an incredible 16:47 to finish 14th!! Senior co-captain Christian Scholz ran another smart and strong effort and his 17:05 garnered 28th place. Rallying from a conservative start, Alex Keeter held on and ran a solid 17:31 that was good for 43rd and the final scoring spot for the state qualifying Eagles!! Juniors Ryan Price (45th-17:35) and Mitchell Foley (57th-17:58) rounded out the varsity runners for Milton.

The Eagles travel to the GHSA State Cross Country Championships to conclude the season on next Saturday, November 10th, at Carrollton Elementary School in Carrollton, GA. The boys are scheduled to run at 1:00pm with the Lady Eagles to follow at 1:30pm.

The Milton cross country teams had one of the most successful days in team history at the Region 6-AAAAA championship meet. With both the boy’s and girl’s varsity teams qualifying for the state meet, Milton joins Walton (both boy’s & girl’s), Lassiter (both boy’s & girl’s), Chattahoochee (boy’s) & Northview (girl’s) as the teams from Region 6 to advance to the state meet. The Milton teams walked away with 3 team trophies and many all-time and seasonal bests in making a big impact on the state cross country scene!!

JV Girls
The JV Lady Eagles started the meet with a bang with their impressive runner-up finish to Walton! With 3 runners in the top-12 and all 5 scorers in the top-17, Milton made an impressive showing scoring 52 to finish behind only Walton (25). The JV Lady Eagles exacted some revenge on their 3rd place county performance by beating back all the Fulton County teams that had placed in front of them less than a month ago (Roswell-119-5th, Northview-103-3rd). Great races by Cori Deutsch (3rd)and Chelsea Weiermiller (4th) led Milton and were followed up by scoring runs by MC Durham (12th), senior co-captain Ashley Warner (16th-in an all-time best) and the amazing Maddie Cook (17th).

JV Boys
Milton ran a very strong race to garner 3rd place out of 12 teams. Led by Brandon Halls (10th) and Drew Norris (12th-all time best), the Eagles (120) made a gallant effort but fell short to both Walton (20) and Lassiter (51). Milton was also paced by strong finishes by Thomas Monette (37th), Will Anderson (49th) and Josh Witkowski (52nd).

Varsity Girls
In the biggest upset of the day, the Lady Eagles 2nd place team finish (80) knocked off Fulton County Champs Northview (3rd-95) and 8th ranked Lassiter (4th-120) and almost beat perennial power Walton (1st-74)!! The Raiders of Walton were ranked 5th (all-classification) and 3rd (in AAAAA) going into this weekend’s region meets.
Megan Hirschi’s all time best and runner-up finish led Milton to qualify for the state meet. This amazing team finish for the Lady Eagles was done with both up-front presence and great pack running. Milton’s scorers included Jamie Chandler (8th), Sarah Foreman (14th), Lauren Newman (26th), Steph Butzer (30th), Susannah Hardy (34th) and senior co-captain Laura Randall (53rd).

Varsity Boys
After missing the state meet in 2005 (6th at region), Milton came storming back to place a solid 3rd and qualify for the state meet! Walton (45) finished it’s sweep of winning all four region races. Lassiter (69) was runner-up and the Eagles (117) finished 3rd beating Chattahoochee (155) & Roswell (178). Two sub-17:00 performances led the day for Milton. Tyler Tomy continues to impress (10th) and was backed up by Christian Scholz (13th). Scorers for the Eagles included Seth Tomy (19th), the charging Mitchell Foley (28th-note: Mitchell was 73rd place just before the 1-mile mark and through the race passed an amazing 45 runners, more than ½ of the entire race to run an all-time best!!!) and Brian Parsons (47th). Other Milton varsity runners included Alex Keeter (48th) and Ryan Price (53rd).

The Eagle varsity teams travel to Carrollton on Nov 11th to compete in the State Cross Country meet.