Pisgah cross country ends season at regionals
Nov. 1—Pisgah's cross country season came to an end Oct. 30 as the Bears didn't qualify any runners for the state championships. The NCHSAA 3A western regional meet was held at Freedom High School in Morganton on Saturday.
"We were pleased with the season as far as the team's runners performances were concerned," head coach Joe Sayblack said. "We were disappointed that Daniel Sayblack didn't make it to the state championships in the boys competition. He was off by three places for one of the individual spots for runners that didn't make it as a team. He finished tenth for qualifying as a runner not making it on team."
Only seven runners could qualify from teams not going to the state meet.
Western North Carolina fared well in the regionals, according to Sayblack.
"We knew we were in a tough conference. When the results came out, we saw it was stacked," Sayblack said. "Six boys teams in the region were qualified to go the state. Of those six, three were in our conference."
Pisgah's boys team finished 18th out of 26 teams competing with a total of 436 points.
Zachary Willer of Stuart W. Cramer High School claimed first place with a time of 15:51.
Pisgah fielded two runners in the girls race. Gaby Lara Arredondo finished 128th with a time of 30:33 and Essalina Curlee finished in 33:58 for 133rd place.
"They hung in there, they stuck it out," Sayblack said. "We're really proud of them about that."
Sayblack is pleased with the improvement he saw from his team across the board.
"We started the season with focusing on the consistent improvement and hard work and I think our kids have bought into it," Sayblack said. "We can look back at the records, tracking them all the way back to August and to this weekend and we can see they succeeded in constantly improving"
Sayblack now turns his attention to the winter track team.
"We're hoping to get a couple of these runners to participate in the indoor track program," Sayblack said. "Indoor track is a whole lot about continuing to train between the fall cross country and the spring track and field season. It will be an important part."
Pisgah boys regionals times
26) Daniel Sayblack 17:58
93) Pressley Edmonds 20:53
99) Jonah Webb 21:09
104) Christian Basulto 21:24
114) Aleck Tiller 21:56
121) Grayson Reece 22:02
135) Armand Basulto 22:45
Runner improvements: August times first, then season bests
Christian Basulto: 23:04, 20:42
Armand Basulto: 25:23, 21:52
Pressley Edmonds: 22:43, 19:48
Grayson Reece: 24:11, 21:07
Daniel Sayblack: 19:27, 17:19
Aleck Tiller: 24:15, 20:27
Jonah Webb: 24:26, 20:34
Gaby Lara Arredondo: 32:14, 29:23
Essalina Curlee: 37:10, 33:27
