French Camp Academy finished sixth in the girls race and seventh in boys competition among 1A, 2A and 3A schools at the Saltillo Cross Country Invitational on Saturday. The meet drew many of the top cross country teams from Central and North Mississippi.
“Across the board, almost every one of our runners ran a personal best. You can’t ask for more than that,” said coach Joe Watkins.
French Camp girls finished with a team score of 145, the boys with 157.
French Camp's top runners were Averie Jane Gundy, an eighth grader, for the Lady Panthers and senior Colby Walters for the Panthers. Gundy was 14th out of 102 runners with a time of 22:37.6 for 5,000 meters. Walters finished 12th out of 109 runners in 18:25.5.
Watkins pointed out that Gundy’s time was identical to the time turned in by Ami Sherrif for French Camp at last year’s Saltillo meet “down to the tenth of a second.” Sherrif went on to finish second at the 1A state meet as a senior.
Other boys runners for French Camp were David Ferguson, 34th in 20:01.4; Silas Hodge, 36th in 20:12.8; Cameron McDaniel, 53rd in 21:27.4; Stratton Choppala,59th in 21:41.1; Brady Peacock, 80th in 23:41.7; Josh Lopez, 87th in 24:18.2; and Kaleb Armstrong, 97th in 26:35.8.
For the girls, Maddi Davis was 26th with a time of 24:40.7, Olivia Gundy 35th (25:36.2), McKenzie Griffin 45th (26:37.9), Kelsey Bridges 49th (27:18), Lucy Littlejohn 52nd (27:35.3), Martha Ferguson 57th (27:55.8), Sarah Thompson 76th (31:42.3) and Brooklyn Monroe 84th (33:36.3).
Walters is the only senior among the boys runners and Ferguson the only girls senior. The other eight girls are sophomores or younger.
Defending 1A state champion Tupelo Christian won the boys race with the top three runners led by Brock Kelly with a time of 15:56.5. Kossuth was the girls winner, with Tupelo Christian second. Kossuth is the defending girls 3A champion and Tupelo Christian the defending 1A winner.
In 4A/5A/6A races, Pearl was first and Saltillo second for boys, Saltillo first and Pearl runnerup for girls.
