Cross Country Team Excels at State Meet

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Davis Brown, Co-editor

The 2014 NCISAA Boys and Girls Cross Country 2A State Tournament Meet took place Saturday, October 24th, with seven RMA girls qualifying to compete for both team and individual places and three boys competing individually.  The meet took place in Jackson Park in mountainous Hendersonville, North Carolina.  The team performed very well, capping off an extremely successful season.

The girls’ team was led by sophomore Caitlyn Vester, who placed twelfth out of 161 runners with a time of 21:27 (21 minutes, 27 seconds), narrowly missing a spot on the All-state team by just a single place for the second year in a row.  Senior Meg Deyton ran her last race for Rocky Mount Academy with an exceptional time of 22:55.  Seventh grader Haley McCall followed Meg, showing great promise with a time of 23:46.  The team looks forward to her return next year in addition to her tremendous potential.  They were followed by senior Amy Lerro and junior Izzie Rommel, who finished with respective times of 23:56 and 24:22.  Tenth grader Anna Scott Wingfield and senior Ann Claire Roberson also finished strongly for the Eagles.  The top five scorer’s places are added together, and the team with the lowest overall score wins.  The Eagles finished seventh out of 22 teams, and the first out of teams from their conference.

The boys competed individually, and all scored very well.  Senior Spencer Bulluck finished off his final race for the Eagles extremely strongly; Juniors Rhoney Harris and Davis Brown also ran impressively.  The Eagles are led by Conference coach of the year Michelle Meadows, who had to rush off after the State Tournament in order to run in her own marathon race in Washington, DC.  The Eagles look forward to another exceptional cross country season next year for both the girls’ and boys’ teams.