September 13, 2018 – Advancing Educational Excellence through Athletics

Photo Finish at Etowah County Trail Invitational Grabs AHSAA Cross Country Spotlight for Week 3 Chance Cofield

Photo Finish at Etowah County Trail Invitational Grabs AHSAA Cross Country Spotlight for Week 3

ahsaanow September 13, 2018

MONTGOMERY – The 5,000-meter championship race at the Etowah County Trail Invitational high school boys’ cross country competition held at Noccalula Falls Course near Gadsden may have been a long-distance race. However, it came down to a photo finish last week when Briarwood Christian sophomore Trent Malloy nipped senior Chance Cofield of Albertville by just 27/100ths of a second to win the individual title.
Malloy clocked 18:31.25 to beat Cofield, who crossed the finish line at 18:31.52 to share the AHSAA Cross Country Spotlight for week three of the AHSAA prep cross country season.
The pair beat a field that totaled just over 200 runners. Albertville, coached by Logan Cornett, took first place with 39 points and Pleasant Valley was second with 75 points. Briarwood is coached by Aaron Margene.
The girls’ race was won by Abby Nunnelly, a 5-foot senior for Alexandria. She crossed the finish line at 22:26.11 in another close finish to nip runner-up Maddie Jackson of Fort Payne by 25 seconds. Jackson, a freshman, clocked 22:52.71 to help the Wildcats claim the team title with 24 points. Teammates Anahi Barboza, Aylin Vega, Mollie Sanderson and Abigail Vega were close behind at third, fourth, sixth and ninth, respectively. Barboza is an eighth grader, Anahi Vega, a sophomore, and Abigail Vega and Sanderson freshmen for Coach Ashley Jackson’s team. Pleasant Valley finished second with 78 points.
In other cross country highlights reported from last week’s action:

BOYS
WILL STONE, HOMEWOOD: The Patriots senior won the large-school division title at the 18^th annual Chickasaw Trails Invitational meet held at Oakville Indian Mounds Park with a winning time of 15:37.19 in the 5,000-meter race. Mountain Brook senior Hunter Harwell was second crossing the finish line at 15:50.25. Both times were the fastest of the week for Alabama prep runners. Huntsville totaled 101 points to win the meet, one of the largest in the state annually in the regular season, that had 274 boys’ participants in the large-division race. Vestavia Hills had 127 points to finish second out of 39 schools participating, and Homewood was third with 140.
NICK SIEDERS, UNIVERSITY SCHOOL (TN): Ran 16:52.11 to win the small-school division of the 18^th annual Chickasaw Trails Invitational meet at Oakville Indian Mounds Park. He helped his school from Nashville finished second behind winner Tupelo Christian (MS), which won with 76 points. University School had 79 and St. John Paul II Catholic of Huntsville was third with 80 points. Noah Flynn of St. John Paul II was third with a time of 17:07.03. The field included 33 schools and 297 runners.
GRAHAM BIANCHI, SPRINGVILLE: Helped the Tigers win the team title at the St. Clair County Invitational at Odenville with a winning time of 17:54.94 in the race that included 99 runners. John Niiler of Northridge was second at 18:07.59. Springville had 36 points and runner-up Stanhope Elmore had 90 among the nine teams participating.
DUSTYN LEWIS, GRISSOM: Clocked 10:10.99 to win the featured 2-mile race at the Bearcat 2-Mile Meet. Carson Levario-Slaten of Hartselle finished five seconds back to take second place in the field of 95 runners. Grissom won the team title with 50 points, and Cullman was second with 62.

GIRLS
McKENZIE HOGUE, THOMPSON: The Warriors senior won the large-school division race of the 18^th annual Chickasaw Trails Invitational at Oakville Indian Mounds Park with a winning time of 18:31.28 in the 5,000-meter race. Sophomore Presley Miles of Saint James was second with a 19:15.04 time. The race included 233 participants representing 32 schools. Mountain Brook won the team title with 78 points, and Brentwood (TN) was second with 92.
ISABELLA ROWLAND, MONTGOMERY ACADEMY: The Eagles senior ran 20:47.37 to beat the field of 202 runners in the small-school division of the 18^th Chickasaw Trails Invitational at Oakville. Junior Cassidy Winter of West Limestone was second with a 20:59.10 finish. St. John Paul II Catholic won the team crown with 106 points, and Montgomery Academy was second with 120. A total of 21 teams competed in the race.
MEGHIAN McCARTHY, ASHVILLE: She was the first runner to cross the finish line, clocking 22:29.51, and the Bulldogs scored 34 points to claim the title of the St. Clair County Invitational held at Odenville. Kathleen McCARTHY was second at 23:24.41, followed by St. Clair County teammates Taylor Knight and Emma Thompson, who finished third and fourth, respectively, in the race of 45 participants. Northridge took second place with 52 points.

AHSAA Swimming and Diving: ‘It’s All About the Team’ Dakota Sumpter - swimchampDWS227

AHSAA Swimming and Diving: ‘It’s All About the Team’

ahsaanow September 13, 2018

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – More and more student-athletes are joining the 128 high school varsity girls’ and boys’ swim teams in Alabama. And, those Alabama High School Athletic Association swimmers are finding success beyond the confines of the pools in this state.

Wade Thaxton, swimming and diving coach at Bob Jones High School in Madison, said, “The state of swimming in Alabama is as good as it’s ever been. We are seeing more and more kids take it to college, it’s a good avenue for scholarships.”

Thaxton, who was an assistant for two boys’ state titles at Bob Jones and has been head coach for the past four years, said he was thrilled with the spirit his swimmers bring to the pool. “With high school swimming, it’s all about the team,” he said. “I asked my kids what was different between their summer league teams and our team and they told me, ‘We are together. We do things together besides what we do at the pool.’ One of my swimmers told me, ‘It is all about the school spirit, not just about yourself.’

“To see them celebrate with each other and the parents taking pictures, not of their swimmer in the pool but the team on the sidelines, that is really something that stands out.”

According to the latest reports, 72 AHSAA schools offer varsity girls’ swimming and 56 field boys’ teams. The 716 boys’ varsity swimmers is an 11.5 percent increase over the 2016-17 academic year. Girls’ participation jumped 3.8 percent to a total of 844 swimmers.

The Bob Jones swim teams do agility and weight training along with their work in the pool – which is at a local recreation center, since none of the Madison City Schools System teams have pools at school. “We practice five days a week, about 2½ hours a day,” Thaxton said. “Some of our kids also swim on their own, too. Sometimes in practice, I just want them to do sets for speed – ‘OK, just go as fast as you can on this, just get there.’ Other times, I ask them to go 60-70 percent so we can work on technique. They need individual instruction to know what they need to work on. It’s about doing every little thing that is going to make their time faster.”

Faster pays off for the high school teams – Bob Jones has won nine boys AHSAA championships, including seven straight in the 2000s, and one girls title in 2007 – and for the individual swimmers. Former Patriots standout Zach Harting, who now swims for the University of Louisville, won a bronze medal this year in the Pan Pacific Championships with a personal best time (1:55.01) after finishing second in the 2018 U.S. National Championships in the 200-meter butterfly.

High school swim season for the AHSAA began with the opening of practice on Aug. 6 with the first contests on Aug. 23. The sectional meets – in Huntsville, Birmingham and Mobile – are Nov. 16-17 with the State Meet set for Nov. 30-Dec. 1 at Auburn University.

The Alabama High School Athletic Association, founded in 1921, is a private agency organized by its member schools to control and promote their athletic programs. The purpose of the AHSAA is to regulate, coordinate and promote the interscholastic athletic programs among its member schools, which include public, private and parochial institutions.