ROCK HILL – The Fort Mill Yellow Jackets swept both the boys and girls varsity races Saturday morning to win the Trojan Invitational at Northwestern High School.
The Fort Mill girls scored 36 points and was led by Alivia Cleveland, who tore through the competition in winning at 18:50. The Fort Mill boys won with 43 points and were led by Connor Demmerle, who finished second overall in 16:05.
In the girl’s race, Cleveland led from the starting gun and had a sizable gap in winning by 18 seconds over Mauldin’s Avery Griffith. Fort Mill had all five of their runners in the top 15 and four of them in the top 10.
Following Cleveland was Kaylee Rovenstine in fifth in 19:28, followed by Mia Zook in eighth in 19:59 and Ella Demmerle in ninth in 20:03. Avery Moriarty rounded out the scoring for the Jackets finishing 13th in 20:16. The spread between the five Fort Mill runners was 1:26 as the team had an average time of 19:44 in outpacing the 18-team field.
Nation Ford girls finished fourth with 174 points. They were led by Haley Garcia with an 11th place finish in 20:08. Taylor Battle was 28th for the Falcons in 21:17 and Elise Posko was 38th in 21:39. Jordyn Battle was right behind her in 39th in 21:49 and Madison Frazier was 63rd in 23:12 to finish the scoring for the Falcons.
Catawba Ridge finished 14th as a team with 348 points. Haley Johnson led them with a 30th place finish in 21:23. She was followed by Zadie Wilkerson in 69th in 23:24 and Kaelyn Kellogg was 84th in 24:03. Karley Johnson was 86th in 24:04 and Hadley Cordes rounded out the scoring for the Copperheads finishing 120th in 27:35.
In the boy’s race, Fort Mill was nearly as strong as they had all five of their runners in the top 17 with a 16:40 average. Following Demmerle, Isaac Campbell was fourth in 16:25 and Hudson Haley was sixth in 16:34. Finn Leckrone was 16th for the Jackets in 17:03 and Owen Ware finished in 17th in 17:07.
Catawba Ridge, the defending 4A state champions, now running in 5A, was second as a team with 107 points. They were led by ninth place finisher Jordan Kent in 16:39. Ryan Pierson was 21st in 17:13 and Aidan Rogers was 22nd in 17:16 for the Copperheads. Max Conetta was 28th and Brady Laurin was 31st in 17:32 and 17:34 respectively to finish out the scoring for Catawba Ridge.
Nation Ford finished seventh as a team for the boys. The Falcons were led by 11th place finisher Alexander Bentley in 16:49. Aiden Moysaenko was 39th in 17:44 and Robert Saddler was 41st in 17:46 for Nation Ford. Alex Royall was 74th in 18:38 and Jake Cintron finished out the scoring for Nation Ford with a 79th place finish in 18:46.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
