STATE CROSS COUNTRY: Local teams, individuals shine at AHSAA State Cross Country Championships

DANVILLE, Ala. – There’s a lot of hardware returning to Cullman County after Saturday morning’s AHSAA State Cross Country Championships. The Cold Springs Eagles captured the blue map in the Class 1A/2A race and the Lady Eagles lost a tiebreaker to Whitesburg Christian Academy to finish as state runner ups. This year’s Cold Springs boys are the first team in school history to finish the season as undefeated state champions and head coach Casey Howell was very proud of the way both his teams competed on the biggest stage to finish stellar seasons.

“We had talked about coming here and doing things the right way for the people that came before us and the people that are going to come after us and we constantly look back and remember the Cold Springs teams from the past. We just wanted to be a part of that history and looking back, one of the things they told me from the beginning is usually there will be one let down per season where the guys just don’t bring it so we talked about each week making sure we’re focused and we bring it,” Howell said. “It was a total team effort this year because we had a great season and went undefeated, but it wasn’t always the same five. For a lot of our season, our number seven runner today was our number five. There was no pride on this team, there was a lot of humility and everybody was genuinely happy for everyone else. We weren’t out there trying to beat each other; we were trying to run for each other.”

Howell continued,

“We had a lot of mottos this year but the big one was we just wanted to remember “Who am I?” and remember that we’re children of God,” Howell said. “We constantly ask them, ‘Is what you did today glorifying to God?’ and I think that brought a realization back to them that everything they do does matter and its just been a magical season. I don’t think a team from Cold Springs has ever gone undefeated.”

The St. Bernard Saints put together a third-place finish in the Class 3A race while the Lady Saints placed eighth and in the Class 6A race, the Bearcats and Lady Bearcats finished third and fourth respectively. The Holly Pond Broncos and Lady Broncos finished 11^th and 12^th respectively in Class 3A while the Vinemont Lady Eagles placed 16^th. In Class 4A, the Fairview Aggies went home with sixth place and the Lady Aggies posted a 12^th place finish.

Individually, Cold Springs’ Reagan Parris and Holly Pond’s Camilla Chambers finished as state runner ups in their respective races while Cullman’s Will Thompson, Cold Springs’ Ethan Edgeworth and St. Bernard’s Caleb Guthery each collected third-place finishes. Brooke Crider placed 14^th for the Lady Eagles to finish on the All-State team and Eagles runners Jonathan Collett, Cole Akridge, Will Grimmett and Aaron Spurger earned All-State honors as well with fourth, seventh, ninth and 12^th finishes. St. Bernard’s Joseph Arriaga placed 13^th in the 3A race to finish All-State and Madilyn Kerber also earned All-State honors for the Lady Saints with an 11^th place finish along with Fairview’s Peyton Bailey who finished 14^th in Class 4A.

Full local boys’ individual results:

1A/2A: Cold Springs – 1^st place (29 points)

3^rd – Ethan Edgeworth: 17:14.31

4^th – Jonathan Collett: 17:17.84

7^th – Cole Akridge: 17:31.02

9^th – Will Grimmett: 17:42.28

12^th – Aaron Spurger: 17:47.00

34^th – Seth Walker: 18:34.56

36^th – Hunter Calvert: 18:40.38

3A: St. Bernard – 3^rd place (104 points)

3^rd – Caleb Guthery: 16:54.69

13^th – Joseph Arriaga: 17:24.90

25^th – David De Jesus: 17:57.18

38^th – Jiovany Aguilar-Arriaga: 18:14.55

44^th – Peter Tran: 18:24.51

49^th – Eli Loyd: 18:33.35

91^st – Francisco Tona: 19:33.52

3A: Holly Pond – 11^th place (316 points)

34^th – Zackery Reynolds: 18:09.06

46^th – Christopher Putman: 18:29.59

90^th – Caleb Partain: 19:32.44

123^rd – Austin Marsh: 20:23.17

128^th – Hunter Farr: 20:31.83

139^th – Joshua Putman: 21:28.46

140^th – Andy Light: 21:30.06

3A: Vinemont

55^th – Will Rhodes: 18:40.56

113^th – Bosten McDuffee: 20:12.49

3A: Hanceville

112^th – Ion Patrum: 20:12.16

4A: Fairview – 6^th place (159 points)

14^th – Peyton Bailey: 16:56.36

31^st – Kegan Hardin: 17:26.64

34^th – Daniel Cook: 17:35.03

49^th – Alex England: 18:06.62

59^th – Jacob Hankins: 18:27.34

68^th – Dakota Wilkes: 18:32.10

120^th – Austin Lowe: 19:36.13

6A: Cullman – 3^rd place (97 points)

3^rd – Will Thompson: 16:01.09

17^th – Nicholas Wood: 16:51.80

24^th – Troy Adkison: 17:08.71

27^th – Adam Mangum: 17:16.79

31^st – Conner Lowery: 17:25.59

71^st – Walker Huddleston: 18:12.40

94^th – Ben Kelly: 18:29.13

Full local girls’ individual results:

1A/2A: Cold Springs – 2^nd place (80 points)

2^nd – Reagan Parris: 20:29.52

14^th – Brooke Crider: 21:58.07

21^st – Hayla Watson: 22:09.09

24^th – Ava Akridge: 22:14.70

29^th – Allison White: 22:32.28

33^rd – Emma Hancock: 22:43.61

50^th – Aletheia Sanders: 23:28.87

3A: St. Bernard – 8^th place (209 points)

11^th – Madilyn Kerber: 20:48.69

37^th – Emma Powell: 22:04.02

48^th – Sara Barck: 22:37.33

64^th – Kathleen George: 23:20.55

77^th – Claire Sanders: 23:39.37

110^th – Chloe Tombo: 24:53.86

149^th – Lizbeth Medina: 27:14.62

3A: Holly Pond – 12^th place (321 points)

2^nd – Camilla Chambers: 18:51.53

39^th – Abigail Kusz: 22:09.29

117^th – Emma Grace Daniel: 24:59.11

129^th – Madison Frnka: 25:30.07

145^th – Paris Pannell: 26:23.42

156^th – Addison Armstrong: 28:33.85

3A: Vinemont – 16^th place (409 points)

44^th – Kendall Harbison: 22:22.40

95^th – Ava Pullium: 24:22.72

130^th – Gracie Lovell: 25:32.27

133^rd – Abby Kuykendall: 25:36.36

144^th – Faith Richardson: 26:18.94

160^th – Sydney Ramey: 29:19.12

4A: Fairview – 12^th place (301 points)

59^th – Angelica Antibero: 22:56.06

74^th – Jillian Moore: 23:18.29

82^nd – Alyssa Harper: 23:38.98

87^th – America Diaz: 23:49.87

90^th – Carrington Chambers: 23:58.45

94^th – Zohie Ballenger: 24:10.74

144^th – Rose Fish: 28:32.96

4A: Good Hope

53^rd – Bijou Phillips: 22:48.80

6A: Cullman – 4^th place (128 points)

19^th – Bernarda Tizapa: 20:19.04

20^th – Jennifer Aviles: 20:23.94

21^st – Della Kelly: 20:25.82

35^th – Tess Heaton: 20:56.48

40^th – Colette Whitney: 21:03.59

73^rd – Sidonie Desnoes: 22:06.29

79^th – Anna Shirey: 22:14.98

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