PITTSBORO — Saturday’s Ronald Horton XC Classic, held at Northwood High, offered spectators their first glimpse at a few of Chatham County’s top long-distance athletes for the 2022 cross country season.
Along with Northwood, Woods Charter participated in the championship race as a team. The Chargers won the boys competition thanks in part to senior Christian Glick, who finished second overall in the race with a time of 18:14.27.
The Wolves placed second in the girls competition and third in the boys. Woods Charter is trying to follow up on a storybook season that saw the team finish first and second, respectively, at the boys and girls 1A mideast regionals last October.
Woods Charter head coach Karen Hawkins is dealing with some unexpected losses, but she still feels like the Wolves are primed to improve on their performance last season.
“The kids are very excited about what we accomplished last year,” Hawkins said. “The memories are definitely fresh, and they want to return to that level this year and maybe go further.”
Last year, the Woods Charter boys finished first at the 1A mideast regional anchored by a strong race by current senior Wiley Sikes, who finished second in the race with a time of 17:07.58.
The Wolves are without Sikes this season, as he’s decided to completely shift his focus to swimming. Sikes currently swims for the YMCA of the Triangle Area and is currently the No. 64 ranked recruit in the state of North Carolina in the Class of 2023, according to swimcloud.com.
“We’re going to heavily miss (Sikes), but he wants to compete at the Division-I level for swimming,” Hawkins said. “Last year, we worked through the two competing sports as best we could, and I think he did an amazing job balancing both. I do think this might be best for him, ultimately.”
Woods Charter was without a few of its other top runners at the Ronald Horton Classic, but the Wolves figure to be competitive again in the 1A classification. Hawkins highlighted seniors Collin Thompson and Ethan Galiger as two athletes to watch the rest of the season.
Thompson burst onto the scene last year with a 14th-place finish (19:22.93) at last year’s 1A mideast regional. Galiger finished 59th (22:06.99) at last year’s regional, but Hawkins said the senior has been “putting in the most training of any boy I’ve seen this year.”
On the girls side, Woods Charter is led by junior Ellie Poitras and senior Maddie Sparrow, who finished third (23:12.53) and fifth (23:29.01), respectively, at the Ronald Horton meet Saturday. Poitras and Sparrow finished 2-3 at the 1A mideast regionals last season and both figure to be in the mix for the top spot in the race this season.
With their top talent back on the girls side, the Wolves expect to better their eighth-place finish at last year’s 1A state championship meet.
“I know the girls would love to take the regional title as well as improve on our state finish last season,” Hawkins said. “They’re very motivated and are pushing each other in an appropriate way this early in the season.”
Woods Charter will have plenty of competition in its own conference, as Chatham Charter returns in 2022 fresh off a third-place finish at last year’s boys mideast regional race. The Knights did graduate several of their top runners, however, including Brandon McKoy — who finished fourth at the 2021 1A state meet in a time of 16:57.43 — and Caleb Kolb.
Chatham Charter’s top returning boys runner from last year is senior Silas Christenbury, who finished 17th at the 1A mideast regionals last season.
Sports Editor Jeremy Vernon can be reached at jeremy@chathamnr.com or on Twitter at @jbo_vernon.