Whiteoak senior Landen Eyre outpaces the field en route to his seventh race win of the season.
This Saturday, the Whiteoak cross-country runners battled the hot and hilly Rio Grande course. Rio Grande is the long-standing southeast district host for the district meets. This huge invitational had well over 1,000 total runners.
In the varsity boys race, Whiteoak’s Landen Eyre cruised to a 36-second victory out of the 304 competitors with a time of 15:51. Eyre has now won all seven races this year and is 1128-0 for the season.
Coach Doug Hughes added “Landen was very smooth the entire race. Never really slowed down or sped up, just took a 5:05 pace for the race and looked fully in control. People from many other schools come up to me and say how fun it is to watch him and my response is always “You ought to see his workouts.”
Eyre will face a huge challenge as he will compete in Centerville this upcoming Saturday night running under the lights against the best D1 runners of Ohio and surrounding states.
Teammate and brother Keegan Eyre was next in for the Wildcats with a time of 20:29 and 115th place. Shane Mitchell-Cox was 139th (21:05) and Kenyon Hughes 165th (21:41). Hughes was happy with their performances.
“I keep telling these guys it will cool down and they will run faster times but it keeps being 84 and sunny and it’s a huge factor,” he said. “Practices have been tough and they are battling. They’ll get where they want soon.”
In the girls’ race, Charli Hauke finished 63rd out of 217 runners to lead the way and Aubrey Swafford with her best time of the season with a 26:51 and 128th place.
Hughes mentioned “I’m proud of these girls. Charlie doesn’t get to practice much due to volleyball but when she can make it she holds nothing back, 23:34 is an impressive time for that course and weather. Aubrey is just a relentless worker and her cracking the 27:00 mark again and defeating nearly 100 runners in the race, she’s only a freshman.”
In the junior high races, the sun was extra hot and pushing the upper 80s. Kenley Juillerat led the way with a 73rd place finish out of 221 runners and a time of 16:26 while teammate Natalie Burnett was right behind with a 76th place and a 16:38. Tessa Frazier finished in 171st with a 20:48.
The boys had Adrian Ekhator in 119th out of 294 runners in a time of 14:36. Jason Wolf was 218th (18:01) and Luke Cox 242nd 19:04.
Hughes’s final comments were that the “junior high kids often get to run first but not today and the sun zapped them pretty good, It’s just like practice. It’s always hot and sunny with no shade and practices have been tough. These kids have worked super hard doing something most kids would never even try. I’m proud of all of them.”
