Siblings Lead Royals
Siblings Lead Royals in Opening Meet
The Running Royals were in action at the Pace Patriot Cross Country Invitational on Saturday. Both teams were led by a brother and sister combo that led the boys and girls teams from Jay.
Jillian Thornton was the first Lady Royal to cross the finish line for Jay in a time of 22:03. She was followed by freshmen Hannah Whitlock (31st) in 23:16 and junior Carsen Arrant (77th) in 27:19. On the boy’s side, Chance Thornton led all Royals with a finish time of 20:31, good enough for 58th place. The second Royal in the boy’s race was senior Austin Gonzalez (89th) in 22:01.
Boys Head Coach, Matthew Dobson commented after the race: “The expectation was to run hard today and get the first race under our belt. There’s much room for improvement. We have a young team, but their competitive spirit is as high as any team. I have no doubt their times will improve as the season goes along.”
Girls Head Coach, Teresa Dobson said, “Like the boys, our team is young, but they have been working hard at every practice. They’re goal-oriented and we’ll be very competitive in our district competition with potential for some state qualifiers.”
The Lady Royals finished 9th out of 14 teams, beating bigger schools Pine Forest, Milton, and also beating district rival Pensacola Christian Academy. In the boy’s team competition, the Royals finished 15 out of 18 teams, but were within 5 points of 12th place.
Two of Jay’s seventh grade runners, Chance Thornton for the boys and Emma Barrow (27:42) for the girls, were the Top 7th grade finishers overall in the boys and girls races.
Grace Gillman (95th) 28:44, finished the scoring for the girls varsity team. Other Royal finishers in the boys race were: Austin Lang (102nd) 23:01, Jody Godwin (108th) 23:35, Jimmie Ates (116) 24:25, Jacob Gonzalez (133rd 28:53).
In the Junior Varsity race, the Lady Royals ran three sixth graders who finished strong in their first race as a Running Royal: Brett Watson (28:28), Hannah Kersey (30:01), and Calista Hamilton (30:20).
The next competition for the Jay Cross Country Teams will be at the Paxton High School Meet on Tuesday, September 5th at Lake Jackson in Florala, Alabama.
