Bale-N-Trail Race Review

Not many people from Florida have heard of Peachtree Ridge and rightly so, they are from Georgia just south of Atlanta. Everyone at Bale-N-Trail today now knows who they are. When you win all four teams races and 3 of 4 individual races, people will stop and be amazed and that is what they were today. Constantly while walking around the course, I continued to hear people say “Another one? Wow. They are really good!” Peachtree Ridge dominated today. Here is a race by race recap.

Boys and Girls JV:

The Peachtree Ridge girls went 1-2-3-4-5-7-9-10, a perfect score of 15 points for the girls JV squad from Georgia. Bolles was 2nd with Creekside rounding out the top 3.

The Boys JV race was much of the same. 1-2-4-5-6-7 for the Peachtree Ridge boys, only being broken up by Amos Jouquin in 3rd place, so 18 points for Peachtree with an absolutely dominant performance in the JV races by Peachtree Ridge.

Girls Varsity:

I said in my preview yesterday that this was Karen Xiang from Nease HS’s race to lose. Xiang did not disappoint. On a day where conditions were not great (sunny, hot, muddy in certain areas), Xiang led, literally, every step of the race and finished with an 18:13. The team battle for the Girls’ Varsity was the best team race of the day. Going into the 2 ¼ mark, I could not tell who was leading. My guess was Peachtree but the 4-5 combo of Bolles was right on their heels. Peachtree Ridge ended up winning by 15 points over Bolles with Nease finishing third. Some other top finishers were Addy Lippett (18:53) from Peachtree Ridge, Kayley Delay and Danielle Van Liere from Fletcher (18:59 and 19:10 respectively), McKenzie Wilson and Ally Hadja (19:02 and 19:14) from Bolles, and Hannah Giangaspro from Bartram Trail in 19:30.

Boys Varsity:

Kevin Mills from Peachtree Ridge went pedal to the metal the entire race and won comfortably in 15:37. At about the 800m mark, he made his move and never looked back. I was amazed to see the gap he created just before the 2 mile mark. It was about 30 seconds and I was stunned. Stanton teammates Wesley Norton and Eric Tallbacka got 2nd and 5th place. Mills’ teammate Isaac Penman got 4rd and an impressive showing from Bolles’ Austin Decker in 3rd rounds out the top 5. Peachtree Ridge crushed the team title (Are you surprised?) but the real battle was for 2nd. Mandarin was my favorite going in and their top 3 finished in the top 11. But their 4-5 combo didn’t race well which allowed St. Augustine, who got 2nd at Katie Caples, to take the runner-up award.

All in all, today’s races were fantastic and I think all runners had a blast. Whether it was racing in the afternoon or jumping over bales of hay, Bartram Trail always puts on a great meet. That was my 9th consecutive year attending the meet and I enjoy it every time I go. Thanks for reading guys! Happy running!

Josh Karadeema

Twitter: @mr_deema