SPARTANBURG, SC - As the sun rose across the Milliken Research Center campus in Spartanburg, hundreds of high school cross country runners from across the southeast arrived to compete in the prestigious Eye Opener Classic on Saturday morning, including many local teams.
The Eye Opener Classic is a cross country event held on the Milliken campus and put on by USC Upstate, which includes multiple 5k races in different divisions. "When you have teams coming from all over the southeast it gets you a chance to see the best and when it comes time for the state qualifiers it doesn't seem so daunting," said Bulldogs head coach Drew Thomas. "There are people here running sub fifteen-minute times and you're not going to see a lot of that at the state qualifiers, where our eighteen-minute times will be strong performances. We're ready for the competition and we're geared up for a strong season." In the boys' international 5k event, Wando won the team event along with seeing local schools Dorman finish fourth and Spartanburg finishing ninth. Dorman's performance was led by Elias Workman who finished in 17th with a time of 16:26.8. Knox Easton led the Spartanburg attack with a 31st place finish with a time of 16:40.1. In the girls' international 5k event, James Island (Charleston, SC) won the team event as local team Dorman finished fifth. James Island was led by Hannah Vroon who finished first in the individual standings with a time of 18:24.3, which was seventeen seconds ahead of second place. Dorman's top finisher was Ella Tombuelt who finished 36th with a time of 20:17.5. The boys' championship 5k event was won by River Bluff and saw strong performances from local teams Landrum (14th), Boiling Springs (22nd), and Chapman (26th). Boiling Springs was led by Jake Sapp who finished in 59th with a time of 18:38.3 and Andrew Cooler who finished in 63rd with a time of 18:47.9. Damar Davis led the Landrum charge with a 37th place finish with a time of 18:15.5 and Colby Wines led the Chapman attack with a 75th place finish with a time of 18:58.4. Chesnee had the strongest individual performance as Omarion Ocampo-Rios finished in 29th place with a time of 17:58.8, out of 436 runners in the event. The girls' championship 5k event was won by AC Flora as local teams Spartanburg (7th), Spartanburg Christian (10th), Byrnes (13th), and Boiling Springs (25th) had good showings. Byrnes Reese Houck had the highest individual finish with a 24th place finish in a time of 21:46.1. Gabriella Sanchez led the Boiling Springs attack with a 40th place finish in a time of 22:13.4 Natalie Goodwin led Spartanburg Christian with a 50th place finish in a time of 22:27.8 and Helen Colbath led Spartanburg's attack with a 61st place finish with a time of 22:48.3. The finishes were out of a field of over 400 runners. "Our guys ran okay today but our varsity girls were probably the highlight of our day," said Bulldogs head coach Drew Thomas. "We had a couple girls run within seconds of their PR (personal record) and our guys are led by strong group of three. I expect both our boys' and girls' teams to be contenders to qualify for state this year." Boiling Springs cross country will be back in action next Saturday (September 10th) in the ICS Patriot Classic in Greenville. Comments are closed.
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