BLAKELEY, Alabama — Spanish Fort High hosted its first Battle at Blakeley cross-country meet Saturday at Historic Blakeley State Park with 22 teams and 212 varsity runners and 500 all together taking part. A number of local runners turned in top-10 individual times as well as personal bests by significant margins in spite of the 5-K (3.1 mile) courses' challenging hills.

In team competition UMS-Wright won the girls and McGill-Toolen Catholic took the boys gold. The same teams dominated the top five finishes in both the boys and girls divisions.

The Lady Bulldogs of UMS-Wright won with a low score of 41 and a total time of 1:39:27.74 led by overall winner Kathryn Lazarchick Ums-Wright who turned in a 17 minute, 55.16 second first-place run.

McGill-Toolen Catholic with three-top-10 finishers was just a point back with a silver 42. Bayside Academy's Lady Admirals edged out the home team Toros for third 93-100 with B.A. senior Molly Pinnux leading the way in sixth overall while burning off a huge 36 seconds from her best career time to date. Her top-15 teammates Mary Catherine Branyon, 12th, and Abigail Warner, 14th, lifted the Lady Ads into the medals.

Kaleigh Akers of Daphne, running unattached, ran the best race of her career as the sophomore turned in a 19:48.14 — almost 1:30 seconds off her PR.

The Lady Toros were led by Junior Jordan Huber who also turned in a PR to take 10th and freshman Linsey Hrabovsky' 15th to finish 31 points better than fifth-place Cottage Hill Christian with Caroline Cumbest

leading the Lady Warriors. Foley's Lady Lions were sixth with Katy Hines 13th and Rachel Pigott 18th. Gabrielle Chunn's 25th finish helped the Lady Golden Bears of Robertsdale compete defeating Theodore by 36 points.

In the boys race, the Yellow Jackets of McGill-Toolen Catholic ran away with a low score of 36 well ahead of Cottage Hill Christian's 74 and UMS-Wright's 75. The Toros took fourth with a score of 100 but well ahead of Baker's 167. Bayside was seventh, Foley ninth, Baldwin County 10th and Robertsdale 12th.

Individually, Robert Hope of UMS-Wright ran a strong 15:30.80 to win with teammate Chase Tan right behind by 36 seconds. Mc-T was led by Conrad Collins in third, Tim Aguirre and Philip Friedlander rounding

out the top five. Bayside Academy junior Ryan Shankle led the Admirals with a seventh individual finish overall and also cranked out the best time of his career beating his previous best by over thirty seconds.

Cody Parker of Baldwin County represented the Tigers well with a 17:08.05, 11th-place finish, Alex Guillory of Daphne produced a 17:16.70 good for 12th. Spanish Fort's Tyler Orem was 16th while his SFHS teammates rounded out the top-29 with, Ross Nelson and Connor Irion all turning in sub-18-minute times.

Spanish Fort head coach Michael Rauch said the Blakeley sight proved to be both fun, workable and something a little different heading into the county meet.

"I think the race this weekend at Blakeley went great. The weather worked out to be very nice and the course looked fantastic. The parents of Spanish Fort did an awesome job to help me put on such a great event. Blakeley Park was extremely generous with their park and

allowing us to bring 22 teams and around 500 runners to run their roads and trails.

"The two UMS kids ran very strong and it was great to

have them come to our meet. McGill-Toolen was strong as always and easily swept the boys division. Spanish Fort did very well with Tyler Orem and Jordan Huber leading our two teams to fourth-place finishes.

“It really gives us a good idea of where we stand before the county championships next weekend. Our young boys have really been improving so I am looking for a strong pack finish from them. I know that both

our boys and girls will be coming to race hard at the Baldwin County

Championships."

Akers who was not deterred by the hills was excited over her progress, especially the margin of time (89 seconds) knocked off.

"It feels completely amazing. But my teammates have been so supportive and to do it by so much makes it even more amazing," she said. "They have been helping me train and I was definitely going for the PR today. I really like to run hills, anyway. And my neighborhood where I train has a lot of hills and this was a tough course but I was ready

for it."

Pinnux also felt like she would turn in a PR after struggling with less than satisfactory times her last two races in spite of hard work and preparation all season.

"Our team has worked so well together this year and coach (Alan) Foster has worked with us a lot on getting our strategy down and sticking to it. So we knew what to do and we went out hard and got it done. We've all been working hard and I did get frustrated at Jesse

Owens last week and the week before. But I kept training hard and relied on that. Training hard gives me

confidence. I got up this morning and said I'm going to do what I know I can do. And, as I said, I was frustrated, I was sick of getting beat. So, I knew I could cut a good bit of time off (her PR) today. I just went for it and ran hard and got it.

Shankle, who has been the dominant distance runner for the Admirals since middle school, said he was hoping for a PR of around 30 seconds so cutting it by 40 was icing on the cake.

"I don't really have words for it," he said. "I'm just really happy, especially since it's such a great, challenging course. Back in these hills, the triple-repeat hills, that makes it hard, but you just have to push and push and keep your pace. I knew Robert (Hope) would take off at some point and that was it (the hills). He's one of the best in the state. But I wanted to stay as close as I could as long as I could and I think that helped me in the end.

"I was hoping for something between 16:40 to 16: 50 so I'm very pleased (16:48.22) with what I got. I just want to thank everybody who helps me train. My teammates and coaches and also Spanish Fort and the Blakeley Park officials for putting this on. It's an outstanding course and I hope they keep doing this here."

The Baldwin County Cross Country Championship is this Saturday at Loxley Municipal Park. For more Blakeley results, visit:

http://al.milesplit.com/meets/116176/results/220900 or to learn more about Historic Blakeley, visit: http://blakeleypark.com/