Wednesday Dec. 9th’s meet at Cherokee saw the Swain County boys cross country team finish outside of the top place for the first time this season. The Devils finished second out of four teams, three points behind Murphy for first.
Sophomore Austin SanSouci was the top Swain runner and finished third overall with a time of 18:16.66. Freshman Connor Lambert was fourth overall at 18:33.18, with classmate Connor Brown not far behind in sixth at 19:31.00. Kane Jones finished ninth overall with a time of 19:55.22, and senior captain Dhruv Senghani rounded out the Swain top five with a time of 20:08.50 that put him at tenth overall.
“The course was kind of different from last year, which kind of threw me off a little bit,” said Senghani. “It was super muddy, more muddy than I expected, but overall we are getting better. We are pushing through all the different terrains.”
Senghani said that the terrain at Deep Creek, where the Swain team trains, is more firm and gives the runners a nice push off the ground. Grass, on the other hand, absorbs each step, requires more energy, and slows the runners down. Despite the challenges of the terrain and finishing in second place for the first time, Senghani believes the team is still moving in the right direction.
“Overall I feel like we are coming together,” he said. “Murphy beat us by three, but whenever conference comes around, we got ‘em.”
Senghani is the lone senior on the team, and while some of his underclassmen teammates have posted faster times, the Swain coaches are effusive in their praise of his leadership. Senghani said he has embraced his role as the elder statesman on a team that is carried by three freshmen and a sophomore.
“They’ve been pushing really hard,” he said of his younger teammates. “I told them where I was when I was their age. They are obviously much faster than I was my freshman and sophomore year, and to see them at such a young age pushing that fast and running that fast is just unbelievable.”