Baylor Girls Win Again While McCallie Finishes Second
by Special Report to the Chattanoogan
posted November 7, 2009
) Photo by Michael Locke Baylor's Brandon Lord and Hannah Jumper, left, and Red Bank's Claire Turner won individual cross country titles at the 2009 State Cross Country Championships in Nashville. Click to enlarge. |
The Chattanooga area claimed three individual titles and one team title while another team finished as the runner-up.
Baylor senior Brandon Lord continued a fine final season for the Red Raiders as he posted a time of 15 minutes, 53 seconds in winning the D-II boys race.
Teammate Taylor Dix also earned All-State honors by finishing 15th in 17:31.
While favorite MBA won the boys' team title, McCallie was second and Baylor fourth.
Thomas Walters and Douglas Anderson finished ninth and 11th with times of 17:20 and 17:25, respectively, as the Blue Tornado earned the second-place award with 84 points. Teammate Matthew Jones was 18th.
Baylor junior Hannah Jumper won the girls' D-II individual title with a time of 19:30 as the Lady Red Raiders won their second straight team title with 48 points.
Haley Chandler had an outstanding race by finishing fourth in 20:17.
Teammates Ruthie Townsend and Caitlin Duggan also earned All-State honors with times of 21:02.01 and 21:02.59, which were 12th and 13th overall.
Senior Mary Stagmaier, who played in Friday's state championship soccer match and was late arriving in Nashville on Friday, rounded out Baylor's top five with a time of 21:33, which was 18th overall.
"It was a fabulous day for our girls," said Baylor coach Heather Ott late Saturday afternoon.
"I'm so proud of them all, but for Hannah in particular. She ran tough from the beginning and I knew she was in for a great day after the first mile.
"She had a plan and she executed. She's gotten stronger as the season progressed, but she wanted to set the tone today and to lead the team and that's exactly what she did," Ott continued.
This is the fifth state cross country title for Baylor, but the first time they've won back-to-back titles.
The Lady Raiders have had some outstanding individuals through the years, but Jumper is the first one to win an individual title.
"That was just icing on the cake," Ott concluded.
Johanna Gartman finished sixth in 20:22 as GPS finished fourth with 109 points.
Red Bank's Claire Turner won the girls A-AA race in 19:46 while Notre Dame teammates Alex Mullin and Cay Hendrickson were sixth and seventh with times of 21:01 and 21:13, respectively.
McMinn Central's Dianna Eddington also earned All-State honors by finishing 11th in 21:31.
Notre Dame finished fourth among the girls teams with 129 points while Red Bank was sixth with 206.
Sequatchie County's Dylan Harper and Red Bank's Robert Bridges both earned All-State honors. Harper was sixth in 17:17 while Bridges was 12th in 17:33.
McCallie coach Mike Wood, who led his team to state titles in 2005 and 2006 before finishing third last year, was overjoyed at the performance of his team on Saturday.
"We're pretty excited. Normally, we don't celebrate finishing second, but four of our top seven runners had personal best times today," he said, noting that Walters, Anders Clark (19th), Nihir Patel (26th) and Houston Clark (31st) all ran better than ever before.
"Others were within a few seconds, but we ran better than we expected. MBA was the favorite and they ran great, but this is a great end to our season.
"We had a 35-second spread between our first and fifth runners and that isn't bad," Wood added.
(Email John Hunt at tnmoose2002@aol.com)
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