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Pinecrest, Pine Forest winners at 2nd Fike Niqht RelavsHunt's Mallory Sullivan, left, takes the baton from teammate Eynde Frazier in the girls 4x2,500-meter relay at Saturday's Fike Night Relays at Gillette Athletic Complex. The Lady Warriors placed fourth, best of any Wilson County boys or girls squad. Paul Durham | TimesBy Paul DurhamSports EditorSaturday evening’s second incarnation of the Fike Night Relays at Gillette Athletic Complex might have easily been renamed “Running Through the Pines.”Fayetteville Pine Forest and Southern Pines Pinecrest proved to be the most dominant among the 10 boys and eight girls teams assembled for the unique cross-country relays with four 2,500-meter legs.Pine Forest of the 4-A Mid-South Athletic Conference edged 4-A South Central of the split 3-A/4-A Eastern Carolina Conference in thegirls relays while Pinecrest of the 4-A Southeastern Conference had its A and B teams finish 1 -2 ahead of Pine Forest in the boys relays.But the dominance of the two schools wasn’t a surprise. Pinecrest was the defending boys champion at the Fike Night Relays while Pine Forest was fifth at the inaugural girls relays in 2012, finishing behind Cary Green Hope, Pinecrest, West Carteret and Fike. None of the first three teams returned, with the Pinecrest girls running — and winning—the Early Bird Race at East Whke High on Saturday.“I thought it was a great introductory meet. I love running under the lights and that’s why we came back,” said Pinecrest head coach Michael Swofford, whose boys finished third in the N.C. High School Athletic Association 4-A championships last year.Swofford hopes for a better result this time around.“The competition at the state level’s gotten better;” he said. “This is probably the best team Pinecrest has ever had, the fastest team we've ever had. But the competition at the state level has gotten so good now that it’s always competitive everywhere.”Fike Night RelaysresultsResults from Saturday s Fike NightRelays at Gillette Athletic Complex.Both girls and boys relays were4x2,500 metersGIRLS1, Pine Forest “A42 512. South Central “A42:583. Epiphany “A43:214 Hunt “A43:365. Rose “A”44:376 Havelock “A”45:157 Fike “A”45:168 Pine Forest “B48:159 Rose “B”48:1810. Hunt B”48 5011. Holmes “A48:5112. South Central“B49:4013. Epiphany “B53:1514. Holmes B1:04:55BOYS1. Pinecrest “A32:162 Pinecrest “B32:583. Pine Forest “A”33:144. South Central “A35:335 Pine Forest “B35:356. Epiphany “A37:097. Havelock “A37:138 Pine Forest “C37:169 Beddingfield “B37:2210. Beddingfield “A38:1311. Hunt “A38:2612. Rose “A”38:3313. Epiphany “B39:0814 South Central“B39:2215 Havelock “B39:4016. Fike A”40:0117. Epiphany “C*40:0918 Havelock *C”40:1919 Rose “C41:0320. Rose“BM41:5221. South Central “C42:5222. Hunt “B43:1823. Holmes “A43:31Both Swofford and PineForest head coach Jack Brunecz were delighted to participate in a season-opening meet with not only stiff competition but a big fun factor as well with the relays providing a twist to the standard 5-kilometer format.“I like the uniqueness of this event,” Brunecz said. “I think it’s a little less nerve-wracking for the kids; it’s mainly a fun event and Ithink it’s a great way to startoff the season.“I think opening up the season with a race that’s half a 5K is a good introduction into the sport of crosscountry.1nBrunecz launched the Trojans’ season by participating in the 2.5K community run that began Saturday’s proceedings. He finished just seconds behind the torrid pace of winner Ryan Albertson, the Epiphany Schoolhead coach and former runner at the University of Arkansas who finished in 7 minutes, 28 seconds.“I know my kids enjoy it,” Brunecz said of his runners watching their coach compete. “They were talking about it a little bit. I mainly just do it to kind of inspire the kids and kick the season off a little bit. If I inspire any of them, then I accomplished my goal today.”Prior to the relays, there were 5K developmental races for boys and girls, which was necessary given the large number of runners from the 4-A schools such as Pinecrest, Pine Forest, Greenville Rose and South Centra] Pitt, along with the other participating schools Edenton Holmes, Epiphany and Havelock.LADY WARRIORS TOPCOUNTYThe best finish by a Wilson Cpunty school game from the Hunt girls A team, which placed fourth, three spots ahead of perennial.rival Fike.“Last year they had such a good girls team so this year, that was definitely our goal —to beat Fike!” assured Lady Warriors sophomore anchor leg Lauren West, who was joined by Eynde Frazier, Mallory Sullivan and EmilyDuncan.Hunt third-year head coach Stephen Boyette praised both his squads.“Lauren did great and passed a couple of people on the last leg,” said Boyette, reminding that he had just three girls on the team his first season. “Eynde got out and got us off to a good start. Even the second squad held their own. They passed people at the end with sprints, which is something we try to do. So I’m tickled to death with how the girls did.”The Fike girls, beset with early season injuries, were edged for sixth place by Havelock. The Lady Demons fielded just one relay teanjof freshman Erin Pincney, junior Leighanrt Bowen, sophomore Marie Paige Smith and senior Kristen Ewan. :VjytesM“Kristen Ewan just gave everything she had,” said Fike first-year head coach Patrick Yarbrough, the busiest man of the night as the meet organizer. “She wasbasically just got outkickedthere at the end. She ran the second-fastest leg on our team that night.”Beddingfield did not have enough runners for a girls relay team but the Bruins had the top finish among the county boys squads. Head coach Bruce Pike mixed up his squads and his B team, with sophomore Jacob Var-nell running anchor, took ninth in 37:22, a spot ahead of the A team, anchored by sophomore Chris Lee.“It ended up that way. I didn’t intentionally do it that way,” Pike said of the configuration. “It gave me good competition between the A and the B team, which is one of the things I was lookingi£* ; ./» ' ■Pike said he looked for better times from his runners. ; fpW.’ : ...“It shows me what we’ve got to improve on,” he ventured. “I’ve got to spend more time establishing what their race pace ought to be ”The Hunt boys A team was 11th in 38:26 while the Wrriors’ B squad was 22ndin 43:18. f .v, ■ % -S -1'The Fike boys, also battling numbers problems, had just one relay and that unit was 16th in 40:01. Still, Yarbrough was pleased with what he saw v“I think our boys did real well, Yarbrough said, noting the performance of lead runner Tyler Joyner. “I was looking at their times this morning and it looks like every one of them improved.”Yarbrough said his biggest problem Saturday was not having enough time to function as coach as much as he would have liked, given his duties in running the event, with plenty of help, he added, from parent volunteers and Fike Booster Club members. He pointed to the efforts of parent volunteer Linda Cavas and senior runner Derrick Collins as critical in having the teams ready to run.“That’s the one thing I think I missed and when we do this again next year, I’m going to try to get myself out of the active role and try to coach my runners,” Yarbrough said.But with more than 300 runners and a host of friends and family members on hand to shout encouragement and enjoy the perfect weather under the lights, the second running was clearly a hit.“It makes every runner matter,” Pinecrest’s Swofford said of the relay format. “There’s always a team aspect in cross-country but the cumulative time matters so every runner has to push himself and he can’t rely on someone else to win.“The relays in track are always so exciting so to have something like this in crosscountry makes it very exciting, too. It just adds a different atmosphere to it.”paulta*wilsontit7es.com 1265*7808
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Wilson Times
Wilson, North Carolina, US
Mon, Aug 26, 2013
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