TA, Blazers pick up wins on Giants’ senior day

Waynesboro’s senior day turned out to be Turner Ashby and Spotswood’s show. The TA girls and the Spotswood boys took wins at the final Little Giants’ home meet at Ridgeview Park on Wednesday.

After the senior day ceremonies ended the girls started the first race of the evening. As fans gathered around the finish line the first runner to cross was Waynesboro freshman Meredith Figgatt, who finished with a time of 21-minutes, 51-seconds.

Turner Ashby’s Clare Capasco and Caroline Young followed in second and third. Spotswood’s Mikaela Davis and Waynesboro’s Victoria Anderson rounded out the top five.

TA won the girls meet with a score of 31 followed by Spotswood with 46 and Waynesboro with 50.

“I think I did pretty good,” said Figgatt. “ This course has a lot of hills so sometimes it’s tough.”

Little Giants coach Julie Stevens was proud of the way Figgatt ran.

“She is a great runner and she knows when to pick it up.”

The boys started off their race in close pack, but soon TA’s Alex Ott took a commanding lead followed by Spotswood’s Kris Gorbea and Matt Hoerner.

As Ott came around the last turn he was cheered on and crossed the line with a time of 17:44. Eight of the next nine runners were from Spotswood for a total score 20 points. TA finished second with 54 points and Waynesboro had 64.

“The boys definitely ran as a group and they came across together,” said Spotswood coach Sue Rinker. “I am really pleased with their performance.”

Spotswood’s Gorbea and Hoernor gave Ott all that they could with times 17:57 and 18:02, but were unable to catch up with him.

Little Giants senior Ed Ennis was very proud of the way he ran on senior day.

“I have been running this course for four years,” said Ennis. “It is a great feeling knowing I tried my best on senior day.”

Even though the Little Giants were unable to come up with a victory on Wednesday night Stevens was proud of how her teams ran.

“We knew it was going to be tough going against TA and Spotswood but I think we did well overall,” said Stevens. “Our seniors did an awesome job.”

Coach Stevens is planning to get all of her runners finishing with quality times by seasons end.

“Our top-seven guys are not as strong as our girls and we need to work on finishing together something were going to continue working on for the rest of the season,” she said.