Pickens Preview - Review
The weather cooperated and we had a lovely evening in Jasper on Friday night at the Pickens Preview Middle School meet.
If you have photos to upload, or want to see what is currently in the Pickens album, please do so here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/3PESbioskeMZC7Gt9 . (h/t to Evaristo Jo for pulling this together.)
Thirty-one runners participated, having run enough over the summer that we believed their legs were ready for a full race. The competition was fierce: after the meet one it was mentioned in the coaches meeting that this was perhaps the highest competition of the season at the middle school level, even moreso than what would be seen at State because all the teams were running in the same race instead of their respective divisions. We knew that going in; our goal was to let the kids run hard and run free.
Run they did! Our JV girls started the night off with a strong race, featuring the XC debuts of 6th graders Ellie, Mia, Kerrigan, Eva, Olivia and Amelia, anchored by returning runner Kyra. Inside the top 25, Ellie finished 9th and Mia finished 19th, with both runners hitting state qualifying times in their first ever races. Kyra came in a strong 31st and bested her PR by 1:17 (!) to finish in 17:48. She was closely followed by Kerrigan (32) 1 second later and Eva (34) 10 seconds down the chutes. Olivia and Amelia rounded us out with great first runs.
The JV boys continued the evening with 4 of our 8 runners making their XC debuts: Luke, Owen, Niko and James. Luke qualified for State with an 18th place finish of 14:21, and Owen very nearly cracked the 15:00 mark, finishing in 15:02. Ben provided the veteran leadership, finishing 33rd in 14:50, taking 30 seconds off of his PR. Royce (36) and Colin (61) had their 7th grade seasons start strong; Royce PR'd by 50 seconds and Colin by 18. Bennett returned for his second race of the season and finished 64th. Niko battled through stomach issues to finish inside the top 90 at 89, and James gamely raced in a fast field for his first ever race.
The fireworks began in earnest as the Varsity girls raced off at 8pm, with Tamar and Gabi in the top group all night. Tamar finished 16th and Gabi in 19th. The next pack of JRCXC runners was Rena (33), Caroline (34), Emily (37) and Hanna (44), all separated by a mere 14 seconds. Ezri, in her debut, crushed a 14:55 to finish 54th, and Zahra anchored us with a 15:34, taking 26 seconds off her PR.
On the boys side, we saw probably the best competition we'll face this side of Nationals. Despite posting a PR run of 12:31 Carson (28) wouldn't crack the top 25, that's how tough this field was. As expected, we packed runners in shortly thereafter, with Caleb, Brady, Derek, Nick and Bryce finishing 40, 44, 45, 48 & 49 respectively, between 12:47 and 13:05. This tight grouping will help us down the road, rest assured. Michual continued his strong 6th grade start and took 6 seconds off his PR to finish in 13:54, while Haseong also battled stomach issues but still turned in a 15:11.
Once scores across all four races are totaled, we finished third in combined scoring and we still haven't seen almost 2/3 of our runners toe the line this year. That changes this coming week as our summer runners only races are now over and full team races begin.
Saturday morning will be an early morning for everyone, but it is going to be a fun, Cougar-filled day as both the middle school and high school will be racing at the North Georgia Championships in Commerce, GA. All runners are invited to race at this point in the season, and Cougar Nation will be in full effect.
More details will come later this week, but you can get an early start on your planning by checking out the meet website here: https://ga.milesplit.com/meets/717299-north-georgia-championships-full-2026
Have a great rest of your weekend everyone!
-Coach Derek
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