Victor Ashe Continued...
Hardin Valley
Though the times from Victor Ashe may not be as impressive as what we saw from Memphis Twilight, that's the point according to HVA Coach Bryan Brown. Next week we're going to see a lot of teams from Tennessee descend on the Southern Showcase hoping to lay down some fast times but in a brief pre-meet conversation he doesn't want to give his runners any early season time expectations. Kaden Keller (2nd Overall) and Daniel Blackston (4th overall) didn't seem mind and echoed that sentiment in this post race interview.
While the boys team may the headliner for the Hawks, Coach Brown reminded me not to sleep on his girl's this season. While underclassmen like runner up finisher Maddie Archdale are going to lead the front end, he noted that the scoring backend has been fortified by couple of seniors who did not compete as juniors. Based on their profiles, Lauryn Jackson and Sophie Hurst appear to be ones he was referring to who placed 19th and 27th respectively. On paper, the team appears to be a year away from making a significant run at the title but we've seen more surprising things out of the Knoxville area before.
Resurgent West
In 2018, when covering the state meet it was hard to focus
on anything other than the fact Sasha Neglia got disqualified. In the meantime,
West High School won the Large Division I State Championship to what seemed
like everyone's surprise. On Saturday as I watched the race unfold and kept
seeing West runners in my camera shot I thought to myself "are they going to
win this?" They ended up getting 3rd but not by much. Of the runners
that scored for West Saturday, Marley Townsend is the only remaining runner
from that State Championship squad but had a solid core of underclass girls
that, if five closes the gap to four, could make her Senior season almost as
memorable as her freshman one. Of those is Freshman Kristina Weaver who placed
3rd overall and I'll elaborate more on her later this week.
Sophomore Kate Robinson finished 4th overall for the Rebels and 2nd for the team.