Oct. 26, 2018 – After a season full of warm-weather meets, our runners were greeted with cold and rainy conditions as they stepped to the line at Jackson Park in Hendersonville. The rain had been falling for several hours and had turned most of the course into mud and standing water.
Our boys went into the meet as one of four or five teams that had a real shot at the title, and they were eager to improve on their fourth place team finish last year. As expected, sophomore Jackson McGeough started pulling away from the field in the second mile of the race and never looked back. He continued Woodlawn’s streak of individual state champions, stretching it to four straight years (Quinn Schneider won in 2015 and 2016, and Tripp Berini won in 2017). Not far behind Jackson, junior Jesse Jacobson was running a terrific race, sprinting past a competitor at the finish line to take 6th place, despite having suffered an injury a few weeks ago that kept him out of the last two meets. Junior Ethan Mason followed suit as he also kicked past another runner at the finish line to take the 16th spot. Senior captain JT Faccone fell victim to the terrible course conditions as he lost a shoe in the first mile – but he still managed to finish the race with his remaining shoe and take 19th place. The team standings were as close as predicted with four teams scoring in the 20s. Woodlawn fell just 1 point short of Greenfield despite the incredible efforts of our boys, who ended up taking home the runner-up trophy.
In the girls side, senior Ally Fleming ran a very strong first mile which put her in great position for a top ten finish. Incredibly she missed her 5K personal record by only 2 seconds as she crossed the line in 7th place and earned her first All-State medal. Eighth grader and top Woodlawn runner Adina Jacobson started a little more slowly than normal, but pushed past Ally and another runner in the final mile to finish in 5th place – her second All-State performance. Senior Emma McGeough rounded out the scoring for the girls, taking 28th place in the race. Our girls finished fourth in the team standings, an improvement on the sixth place finish last season.
Boys Team Results
1. Greenfield – 21
2. Woodlawn – 22
3. United Faith – 24
4. Lee Christian – 29
5. Albemarle – 40
6. Grace Christian (Sanford) – 67
7. The Burlington School – 70
8. Community Christian – 75
Boys Individual Results
1. Jackson McGeough – 19:46 (All-State)
6. Jesse Jacobson – 20:44 (All-State)
16. Ethan Mason – 22:24
19. JT Faccone – 23:06
Girls Team Results
1. United Faith – 8
2. Grace Christian (Sanford) – 30
3. The Burlington School – 35
4. Woodlawn – 38
5. Northwood Temple Academy – 46
6. Albemarle – 55
7. Community Christian – 59
8. Lee Christian – 84
Girls Individual Results
5. Adina Jacobson – 24:21 (All-State)
7. Ally Fleming – 24:37 (All-State)
28. Emma McGeough – 32:58
29. Abbey Lemons – 33:03
36. Caitlin Hays – 42:39
