Sports
Milton Cross Country Runners Qualify For National Meet
Sam Bowers and Nicholas Yanek qualified as among the top overall individual finishers to advance to the Dec. 2 championship.
By Andy Carr
CARY, NC -- The Milton High School boys cross country team concluded their season Saturday, Nov. 25 with a hard-fought fifth-place team finish out of 32 scoring schools at the Nike South East Regional meet in Cary, North Carolina.
With many state championship schools competing from states such as Virginia, Delaware, Washington, D.C., North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, the top-2 teams automatically qualified for the national championship meet to be held in Portland, Oregon, on Dec. 2. The Jungle TC/Loudon Valley (Virginia; first at 72 points) easily won the meet with Bulldog XC /The Bolles School (Florida; second at 18 points) as runner-up.
Find out what's happening in Alpharetta-Miltonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The Eagles kept in close in the team race as seniors Sam Bowers (fifth-15:09) and Nicholas Yanek (sixth-15:09) paced the team effort with the highest finishes at this meet in school history and individually qualified for the National meet as top-5 overall finishers who are not on first or second place teams.
Milton (fifth at 155 points) has not qualified any runner to a national high school meet since Ian Dickinson went to the Footlocker National Meet in 1999. Bowers and Yanek will leave in the next few days to race the country’s best at the Nike Cross Nationals at Glendoveer Golf Course in Beaverton, Oregon, hosted by the NIKE shoe company.
Find out what's happening in Alpharetta-Miltonfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
In the team race, Western Cary TC/Green Hope (North Carolina; third at 125 points) was a strong 3rd and secured an at-large bid to attend the National Championships and were followed by Louisville Xtreme/St Xavier (Kentucky; fourth at 145 points) whom also bested the Eagles.
Milton could not overcome a very large gap between it’s national qualifiers and its strong pack as the Eagles had seniors Michael Malkowski (50th-16:02), Dru Milton (62nd-16:05) & Ryan Beitzell (85th-16:16) conclude the Milton scoring. Junior Luke Bonneville (121st-16:32) & freshman Hayden Marshall (123rd-16:33) also competed for the teams fifth place effort and final race 2017 season.
Photo: Milton's Sam Bowers (middle/white/932) leads his teammate Nicholas Yanek (left/obscured) to a Nationals Qualifying birth at the Nike Cross Country SE Regionals Meet. Loudon Valley's Peter Morris (right/1242) eventually finishes 4th just in front of Bowers & Yanek. Credit: Mary Ann Magnant/MileStat.com
