“The race of the day had to be Hannah and Ansley,” said Rome coach Andy Blackburn. “That was just fun to watch. You had all the drama there. You had the young upstart, the freshman against the wily veteran.
Fillingim finally pulled away and won the girls’ race with a personal-best time, 19:47. The race marked the first time she broke 20 minutes. McDurmon finished with her second best time this season, 20:01.
“I thought I’d get first or second, but I knew Ansley would be stiff competition, so I’m pretty happy,” Fillingim said.
But McDurmon’s performance, alongside four other teammates who finished in the top-11, helped the Lady Tigers clinch the championship with 28 points and a time of 1:49:25 ahead of the other five schools competing.
“Well, it was a good race, she’s (Fillingim) a good runner and it was a lot of fun,” McDurmon said. “It was a hard course. It’s got good flats, but there are a couple of hills that can definitely throw you off.”
Rome finished second with 31 points and a mere second behind Darlington (1:50:43). Freshman Taylor Phillips led Model to a third place finish with 82 points. Phillips finished ninth and ran a 23:08.
Armuchee finished in fourth with 104 points led by junior Tabitha Beck who ran a 24:39. Coosa was fifth with 126 points led by freshman Kristen Bortz who was 18th with a time of 25:43. Pepperell was led by junior Brittney Mathis who was 12th in the race with a time of 23:35. But the Dragons did not place since one of their competitors was unable to finish.
The boys’ race didn’t have much drama. Rome senior Ben Shippey started and finished in first place with the time of 17:18 despite a personal-best time of 17:39 from Darlington senior Eric Wetherington.
“The race felt pretty good from the start and I went through the mile pretty fast so I was pleased with how I did,” Shippey said. “I wasn’t expecting to run that fast.”
The Rome boys won the championship finishing with 28 points and a time of 1:31:30. Darlington was second with 46 points while Coosa finished third with 60 points. Coosa’s Hylton Hamilton finished third with a time of 18:09. Pepperell was fourth with 102 points with sophomore Jordan Worthy leading the way. Worthy ran an 18:47 to finish in ninth place. Armuchee finished fifth with 148 points. Corey Evans was the Indians top competitor in 17th place with time of 19:33. Model was sixth with 159 points with Jeremy Akin coming in 27th with time of 20:31.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the boys, a lot of them ended up posting personal records today,” Blackburn said. “We had some kids that were sort of on the plateau, in terms of their performance, that had breakthrough races today, so that was good to see.”
Darlington coach Alan Parish said he was happy with his teams’ performance.
“The boys, coming in we knew we were probably right on Rome’s heels and we believed we could overtake them,” Parish said. “But they didn’t just edge us out and we’re thrilled to get second. The girls, we did enough to win the race so we’re thrilled to win.”
As for McDurmon and Fillingim, there seemed to be no hard feelings after a close race. The two girls hugged at the end of the race and congratulated each other.
Coming up next for cross country teams in the area is the Ridge Ferry Invitational. Rome will host 21 teams from Northwest Georgia at Ridge Ferry Park on Sep. 25 at 5 p.m.
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