Boys, girls cross country teams finish in All-County meet

The North Myrtle Beach High School boys and girls varsity cross country teams finished in fourth place at last week’s county championship at the North Myrtle Beach Park and Sports Complex. The Chiefs teams ran against seven other teams in the girls competition and nine teams in the boys race. All races were 5K distances.

The teams were made up of seven runners per team and race time for each runner was averaged to get team results. While the Lady Chiefs finished fourth overall, they had two finishers in the top seven, Isabella Spickler with a time of 21:00.28 for fourth place and Kayah Marques’s seventh place run at 21:10.32. Their finishes also placed them on the All-County Team for the event.

Other finishers for the Chiefs were: Noa Ortiz 10th, Ronan Donahue 30th, Kailyn Brown 34th, Valorie Gore 45th and Chandler Riley finishing 50th.

The girls race was won by Amelia Johnson of St. James with a time of 20:21.21. St. James also won the team event with an average time for the 5K of 21:42.30. Socastee and Myrtle Beach were second and third. The Chiefs fourth place team time was 22:20.04. Carolina Forest, Aynor and Conway rounded out the top seven team finishes.

The boys race individual winner was Jacob Koontz of North Myrtle Beach. Jacob won easily in a team-best and event-best 16:03.26, fifteen seconds ahead of second place finisher Tyler Flannelly of Myrtle Beach High School. Carolina Forest won the team event with a race time of 16:55.89, while North Myrtle Beach’s average race time was 17:34.30.

Chief Alexander D’Annunzio was the second best NMB runner with a 17:04.16 time. Jared Kilday was third with a time of 17:57.34, Halen Button had 18:19.50, Christopher Gabriel was fifth best Chief time with 18:27.24, and the sixth best time for the Chiefs was Morgyn Clark’s 18:29.05. Tanner William’s time was 19:00.93.

 Jacob Koontz’s first place finish also made him number one on the All-County team, along with Seahawks Flannelly, Lucas Davis of Socastee, Zachary Evans of Socastee, Ryan Hughes of St. James and Kaden Buchler and Cullen Dore from the winning Carolina Forest team.

The North Myrtle Beach cross country teams still run in the regionals this week.

While the two varsity races were the big events at the county championship, the first race of the day was the JV boys and girls race. This race combined boys and girls runners for the 5K distance. The North Myrtle Beach boys team finished in fourth place here also with Connor Helmeckl finishing 9th in 19:28.26, Zachariah Brittain 17th with a time of 20:10.50, Connor Chilton 24th in 20:51.65, Canyon Smith right behind at 20:55.84. David Webber was 29th (21:06.59). Andrew Moore’s time was 23:03:26 and Cameron Morris had a time of 24:35.10.

The NMB girls JV only had four runners in the race and did not place but still had three runners in the top 21 finishers. Logan Ortiz was 17th (27:29.62), Jackie Horton was 19th (27:38.25) and Aryana Henry 21st (27:58.11). Eden Blanchard was 34th out of 45 runners (30:50.25).

The North Myrtle Beach High School girls cross country leaves the start line at last Wednesday’s county championship. Isabella Spickler and Kaya Marques,  center right, finished fourth and seventh, respectively, for the Lady Chiefs who finished fourth overall in the meet. North Myrtle Beach Chiefs cross country member Jacob Koontz, far right, with other members of the All-County team were following the county championships in cross country last Wednesday at the NMB Sports Complex. Koontz won the event with a 5K time of 16:03.26. Other finishers, right to left, were Tyler Flannelly, Lucas Davis, Zachary Evans, Ryan Hughes, Kaden Buchler and Cull