Springs Valley Community High School

The varsity boys and girls teams traveled to Orleans on Tuesday and both came back as the 2023 Orange County Champs!! It is the first time in many years that both the boys and girls won in the same year. The boys last county win was in 2020 when Alan Marshall and Grant Brown were freshmen. In addition to the girls winning as a team, Sophie Harris was crowned individual girls county champion as she claimed first place by nearly 2 minutes over the next finisher. Great weather greeted the runners with temps in the 70’s and partly cloudy skies as they took on the Orleans course that challenged them with rolling hills in their 5K races. The boys ran first and Carson Brown took a wide lead from the outset and through the first mile. Grant Brown and Orleans’ Bryce Jones were able to eventually track him down in mile 2 as they battled for first place. Jones eventually pulled away from Grant and set a new school record for Orleans in winning the boys race in 15:58. Grant ran his second best time ever of 16:13 to claim 2nd. Carson was third in 16:42 while Alan Marshall ran a steady race throughout to finish in 4th. Andre Ayres was 4th for the team and 6th overall with an impressive 17:20. Harry Dybsetter was 5th for the team and 9th overall in 18:43. Dane Harris was the only Valley boy to set a new PR in the race and he did it by nearly 18 seconds over his previous best from Saturday's race at Heritage Hills, which was considered much faster and less challenging than the Orleans course. Dane finished in 19:26 and was 13th overall. Henry Dybsetter was 7th for the team in 20:07 while Matthew Woolsey had a nice run in 21:27. Keaton Thacker finished in 23:13 to round out the finishers for the boys. In the girls race it was Sophie Harris from start to finish as she flirted with another school record in cruising to the win in 21:36 which was just 9 seconds off her record. It was clearly a team effort for the girls as they needed all 5 girls that lined up to finish strong in order to claim the county championship. Addi Moffatt backed up her PR run from Saturday with a solid 3rd place run in 23:41. The Lynch twins battled in their race with a pack of runners eventually grabbing 7th and 8th. Keira finished in 24:28 and Jadyn in 24:59. First year runner Macie Mayhew rounded out the scoring for the girls finishing in a new PR of 28:39 in helping the girls capture the county championship. It was a solid effort by both teams as they continue to fine tune and move ever closer to the postseason. For now they will savor the success and look forward to the next race which is on Saturday in Marengo at the annual Crawford County Invitational.