Gallery by Heather Belcher
Shady Spring cross country coach Eric Lawson could not hide his excitement prior to the season.
Saturday morning at the Chick-fil-A Beckley Invitational it was easy to see why the seventh-year coach had high hopes for the 2024 season.
After the girls team opened the day with a second place finish to highly touted Greenbrier East, the Shady Spring boys ran away from the field to top second-place George Washington by 27 points.
“I am over the moon right now. My girls performed really well,” Lawson said. “I went over to the boys huddle pre-race and told them the girls put on a show and asked what were they going to do. They delivered today.”
The sophomore duo of Ethan Dowdy and Logan Malott finished second and fourth, respectively followed by senior Eli Jordan (13) and junior Bo Huffman (16).
Sophomore Reid Radford rounded out the team scoring, followed by fellow sophomore Jackson Farrish and senior Vaughn York.
“On the boys side there was a ton of surprises. Eli, Ethan and Logan took control today and they led from the front. They led our team” Lawson said. “Jacky has that bulldog mentality and I could see it every time he ran by me. He would grit and go.”
Lawson credited the team chemistry with the overall team success.
“We are a tight-knit group, boys and girls. We don’t split up. We train together and they are intertwined,” Lawson said. “They are each others biggest fans. They will get out and work together even on days we don’t have practice. They just hype each other up.”
As they are passing each other, they are telling each other to come on, let’s go get the next one. Having a stud No. 1 runner is nice, but having a strong three, four and five runner wins meets.
Kirklen Hinamon, from defending Class AAA Region 3 champion George Washington, was the individual champion, joined by teammates Gavin Baldwin (5) and Robbie Brown (10) inside the top-20.
Third place St. Albans had three runners earn top-20 medals in Ben Bonham (9), Andrew Michael (18) and Kyle Hibbs (20).
Woodrow Wilson finished fourth running three sophomores and four freshman. Kyle Peters finished third Saturday and Vance Lindley was sixth.
Sawyer Dobbins from Clay County was seventh and Tyler Huffman from PikeView was ninth. Summers County standout Dakota Pettry came in 11th overall followed by Zack Neal (12) from Princeton, Brody Lester (14) from Westside, Elijah Keaton (15) from PikeView and Wyatt Lilly (19) from James Monroe.
Running with a team full of first-ever cross-country runners, Greenbrier East finished sixth led by Jackson Carter (17).
“I am elated about our boys,” head coach Robert McClintic said. “We still have two runners working to get enough practices in that will really help us. They will likely be in that top-five mix. Our goal today was a top-five in the team race and we missed it by (eight) points. I think we are improving and they are working hard.”
“Robby (White) finished third for us today and that was his first every cross-country meet,” McClintic went on to say. “Owen was sixth and Caleb fifth (on the team) in their first-ever cross-country meet. Grayson is a freshman and he finished second for us in his first-ever meet. I am excited for them.”
