The Raider Boys and Girls Cross Country teams competed against the top local and region teams at the Marist Double Dip on Saturday, September 7, 2013. Adding to the difficulty was the revised, and more challenging, Marist course.
The Raiders were without Senior Co-Captain Sam Morris (hamstring injury), and ran only five runners, leading to a 23rd place finish out of 28 teams. Riverwood finished behind Pope and Cambridge from Region 7-AAAAA.
Junior Owen McDaniel led the Raiders with an overall 37th place finish (18:39). Junior Alec Nathan (21:01) was the second Raider across the line, and continues to improve as he makes the difficult transition to one of the top runners on the varsity. Completing the scoring for the Raiders, and competing for the first time on the challenging Marist hills were Sophomore Mark Shutley (21:16), Senior Co-Captain Simeon Ike (21:20) and Sophomore Bayne Jarvis (22:53).
As the boys continue to find the right combination for the meets, they dropped a few places in the Region standings to the 8th spot. As the team looks ahead to the Fulton County Championships in two weeks, there are reasons for optimism:
- Morris should be fully recovered from his injury
- Sophomore newcomer, Osvaldo Hernandez and Junior Willie Herrigel continue to perform well for the JV squad; Hernandez finished the Marist course in 20:14 and Herrigel crossed the line in (21:55)
- the season is young, with much time remaining for improvement.