November 6 – Carrollton Elementary School – Carrollton, GA – By Andy Carr
The Milton cross country teams concluded their seasons at the GHSA 7A State Meet in Carrollton, GA with the Lady Eagles' surprising 4th place team finish.
GIRLS
Milton (4th-197 pts) upset 7 region champion teams and held off 5 teams by a total of 27 points to reach the state podium (top-4 overall) for the 9th time in the last 11 years! The Lady Eagles 8th consecutive trip to the state meet was one of the best by defeating 26 teams. As predicted the battle for the state championship was a close one with region rivals Marietta (1st-107 pts), Harrison (2nd-116 pts) and Hillgrove (3rd-128 pts) going at it for the 3rd time in the last 4 weeks with the Blue Devils of Marietta again finishing on top. Milton used a balanced attack of front runners and a strong team-pack to turn back Lambert (5th-210 pts), South Forsyth (6th-217 pts), Parkview (7th-220 pts), North Gwinnett (8th-222 pts) and Dunwoody (9th-224 pts) who were closest. The Hornets of Roswell (16th-400 pts), the region champions, were well in arrears.
Individually the Lady Eagles were led by the historic performance of junior Farrah Frith (4th-19:40). Her 4th place finish is the 2nd best in school history at the state meet by a Milton athlete! Frith started in control and within the first mile moved up from about 25th to the top-10 and then slowly continued to pass runners with a big surge going up the final hill to garner 4th place.
Milton’s strength came from the “pack” or group running of sophomore Ella Grace Malcom (32nd-20:41), senior Genevieve Trainor (45th-21:08), sophomore Calista Cacciatore (54th-21:20), senior Megan Stechschulte (67th-21:37) and senior captain Jessica Albregts (81st-21:47) putting 5 Lady Eagles into the finish in the span of a little more than one-minute allowing Milton to garner the final podium position. Sophomore Leelah Dennis (118th-22:30) was the Lady Eagles final finisher as the state meet race had 210 runners.
BOYS
The Eagles of Milton (17th-462 pts) turned back region rival Woodstock (22nd-612 pts) and 14 other teams to conclude the effort at their 12-consecutive trip to the state 7A championship meet in Carrollton. As expected, Mill Creek (1st-102 pts) took the title in a close one over Marietta (2nd-104 pts). Denmark (3rd-127 pts) and West Forsyth (4th-137 pts) closed out the podium finishing teams with the region champion Roswell (6th-197 pts) just missing a trophy.
The Eagles were led by sophomore Zach Patell (71st-17:59) who was running in his first state meet as he was the team’s alternate in 2020. Junior Cory Chambers (93rd-18:24) overcame a rough 2nd mile to finish strong and was closely followed by freshman Justin Sevel (95th-18:26) and senior Dylan Bowden (102nd-18:32). Contributing to the Milton effort at the state meet were junior Pearson Gillam (113th-18:44), senior captain Charlie Reynolds (128th-19:04) and junior Oliver Stone (145th-19:20). 221 finishers were recorded in the state meet boys race.
