Springs Valley Community High School

Never before in the history of SV cross country has a team performed as well, in terms of finish times, as the 2023 boys team did today at the Heritage Hills Invitational. Grant Brown, Carson Brown and Alan Marshall ran the 3 fastest times in school history by absolutely crushing their previous best times. If that wasn't enough, Andre Ayres became the 5th and Harry Dybsetter the 11th fastest runners in school history at today’s meet. The average time of the top 5 runners was 16:36 which breaks that school record set earlier this year. The boys claimed first place at this invitational for the first time ever in convincing fashion by winning the meet with 42 points to 2nd place Gibson Southern's 66 points and 3rd place Tell City's 77 points. Both Grant and Carson went under 16 minutes for the first time ever, with Grant finishing just .7 seconds ahead of Carson to claim first place in a new school record of 15:50.9. Grant broke his previous record by 41 seconds. Carson’s time was 15:51.6 to claim 2nd place and Alan finished 4th in 16:15. All 3 times of our top runners today would have broken Grant’s previous school record of 16:31 set just 2 weeks ago at North Harrison. In the race, the cooler weather seemed to help as the top 3 Valley runners were leading the pack midway through the race along with last year’s State Finals qualifier Alex Spindler from Gibson Southern. In the last part of the race, Grant and Carson opened up a lead that they did not relinquish. Carson did close on Grant down the stretch but couldn’t quite catch him as Grant finished just ahead of Carson for the win and school record. Alan looked strong throughout, holding on to 4th place and finishing just 25 seconds behind Grant and Carson. Every boy set a new PR today. As mentioned Andre Ayres became the 5th fastest 5K runner in school history by crossing the line in 17:01 and placing 11th overall. Harry Dybsetter placed 24th with a time of 18:01 which was 7 minutes faster than last year on the same course . His brother Henry's time of 19:00 was almost a minute faster than his previous best and 8 minutes faster than a year ago here. Freshman Dane Harris went under 20 minutes for the first time in 19:47, Matthew Woolsey’s time of 21:06 was 40 seconds faster than ever before and nearly 4 minutes faster than last year. Keaton Thacker rounded out the scoring for the Hawks by running his best time ever in 22:46 to knock over a minute off his PR. For the girl’s they made some history of their own. Sophie Harris lowered her school record by 6 seconds to set the new standard at 21:27. Freshman Addi Moffatt’s run of 22:25 made her the 5th fastest 5K runner in SV girls cross country history. Keira Lynch and her sister Jadyn both set course PR’s here and season best times. Keira’s time of 23:44 was 11 seconds faster than last year and Jadyn’s was 4 minutes faster. The girl’s were without their 5th runner Macie Mayhew, so they were unable to post a team score. Even without the team score it was a very impressive run by our girls as they continue to improve. Coach Freeman said they all ran so fast and hard and he is so super pumped for all the kids. Their hard work and dedication to the sport is paying off in big ways. He continually has ask them to push themselves further than they think they can go to see what is on the other side. To find something each day that they can improve on. With still 5 meets to go in the regular season and the postseason it is exciting to think of just how far this team and these athletes can go. But as Coach Freeman says, “We will not get ahead of ourselves and take it one day at a time.” Next up for the teams is the Orange County Meet on Tuesday at Orleans. Both the JH and High School teams will be running. All the results from today’s meet can be seen here: https://bit.ly/3Zsot4h