Boys place second
Blankenship, Brown SMC Runners of Year
Hannah Styles
hstyles@thesmokymountaintimes.com
Wednesday, Oct. 20, Swain Cross Country took on Robbinsville, Cherokee, Hayesville and Murphy for the Smoky Mountain Conference Championship meet at Kituwah.
The Swain girls team won the conference championship by a landslide with five runners in the top five.
Arizona Blankenship led the pack in first with a blistering time of 18:56.54, followed by Amaya Hicks in second place with 20:52, Gracie Monteith in fourth with 21:17.45, Lily Bjerkness in fifth with 21:21.36, Emily Ulaner in sixth with 21:44.18, and just out of the top ten Laiken Harvey in eleventh with 23:32.62 and Lauryn Linton with 23:40.08.
Swain girls smoked the overall meet with a team score of 18 with a distant second by Cherokee with 43 points.
After a close finish, Swain boys were just out of reach of first place with Cherokee claiming the SMC title with 37 points, followed by Swain in second place with 44.
Swain’s Connor Brown finished first with 17:28.91, followed by Kane Jones in fifth with 18:00.06, Connor Lambert in seventh with 18:15.73, Corey Wolf in 14th with 19:01.32, and Abhi Patel in 17th with 19:23.68.
At the end of the meet, Brown and Blankenship were named SMC Runners of the Year and Swain girls coach Jennifer Chatham was named SMC Girl’s Coach of the Year.
“We were hoping for a win over Cherokee, but overall, we can’t complain. The boys team set 6 personal records and the girls team set five. It was a great meet!” Coach Keith Payne said.
The Cross country team will run at Regionals this Saturday at Kituwah at 10 a.m. and the top four teams and top seven runners will go on to compete at state.
“The girls are seated number one and the boys are seated number two, so they have a great shot of winning and going to state,” Coach Payne said.