Hannah Styles
hstyles@thesmokymountaintimes.com
Last Wednesday, Swain’s cross-country team traveled to Cherokee County to Tri-County Community College to compete in the Jaguar Jungle Run. Teams competing included Swain, Tri-County Early College, Murphy, Hayesville, Cherokee and Robbinsville.
In the girls’ 5,000, the Lady Devils took first place with a score of 20, with Hayesville in 2nd with 53, and Cherokee in 3rd with 71. The Lady Devils had an average time of 22:40.
Swain’s Amaya Hicks was in 2nd place with 20:57.4, followed by Gracie Monteith in 3rd with 21:28.3, Annie Lewis in 4th with 21:44, Marden Harvey in 6th with 24:24.4, Lauryn Linton in 7th with 24:41.3, Lily Bjerkness in 10th with 25:02.2, Lilah Foster in 11th with 25:03.2, and Angelina Lomelli in 15th with 25:52.7.
In the boys’ 5,000, the Maroon Devils also took first with a score of 30, while Cherokee was 2nd with 34, and Hayesville 3rd with 93. Swain had an average time of 19:13.
Swain’s Connor Brown was 2nd with 18:01, Kane Jones was 4th with Connor Lambert 8th with 19:35.1, Abhi Patel 9th with 19:42.1, and Corey Wolf 13th with 20:29.7.
Both the Devils and Lady Devils are currently ranked first in the state in the NCHSAA 1A Cross Country standings.
“Both teams are ranked first in the state based on our times, and that puts the pressure on,” Coach Keith Payne said. “We’re still working hard and training to continue to improve. We ran up to Juney Whank Falls seven times the other day during practice. I ran it with them, and by the end I was thinking ‘why did I have us do this?’”
On Wednesday (after press time), the Devils traveled to Cherokee for a meet hosted by the Cherokee Braves and will travel to Cullowhee for the Smoky Mountain High School Watermelon Run on Tuesday.