Chapel Hill High School’s boys and girls cross country teams have their sights set on making it to the state meet.
They’ll get to see how they fare against the rest of the county next week at the DCSS Cross Country Championships, which are set for Sept. 26 at 5 p.m. at Clinton Nature Preserve.
Chapel Hill made the move up to Class 6A, the largest classification in Georgia, this year. Coach Chris Wilson said Chapel Hill is used to facing some of the best teams in the state.
“We are looking forward to the extra competition,” Wilson said. “We run against these teams all the time. All our meets are big. We run against the Carrolltons and the Hill Groves, so it's nothing that we don't see every single year.”
Senior Lakshmi Robinson ran a season-best 25:33.31 last month in the Zack Wansley Clash, named in honor of a former Chapel Hill and Georgia Tech long distance runner who passed away while training for the Atlanta Marathon.
“Definitely our goal is to go to state this year,” Robinson said. “We work towards it every year, and each year we do get better and better. So, of course, we're gonna put in that work and really help each other stay motivated to make it to state.”
Teammate Faryn Algarin agreed that state is the ultimate goal. She added that the team is always getting better and continuing to stay positive.
“Personally, I just want to make top five in the district,” Algarin said.
On the boys side, Marlon Cruz-Johnson has the team’s season best run of 17:40.63 at the Wire2Wire XC Invitational.
“The boys team got the exact same goal as the girls team of making it to state, being top in our district,” Cruz-Johnson said. “And we also want to win county this year. We've been training all summer for it, so I think we can do it.”
Teammate Ohmahr Fleming echoed that sentiment, adding, “We're going for first.”