• E-Mail
• Print
• Larger
• Smaller

Published: Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 / Updated: Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 05:52 PM

Ruppe paces Fort Mill to York County cross country title

Fort Mill has 5 of 6 top finishers; Ruppe wins event

FORT MILL -- 

The Fort Mill High boys ran to a win in the 2012 York County Cross Country meet held at Northwestern High School.

Fort Mill ran away with the meet after having five of the top six finishers in the race as senior Christian Ruppe, a former Bearcat runner, won the event for the Jackets with a time of 16:10.

“We went out at a good pace,” Ruppe said. “It was slower than I expected.”

Fort Mill’s biggest competition was Northwestern, which finished second some 30 points back, with the final score 18-48.

Fort Mill’s Lucas Stalnaker finished second behind Ruppe by two seconds.

Northwestern’s Mason Lenox finished third breaking up the potential Fort Mill sweep of the boys’ race, giving the Trojans their best finisher.

Rounding out the top five for Fort Mill was Matthew Case finishing fourth and Cameron Ruppe finishing fifth for the Jackets.

Some friendly trash talking had been going on between the two schools leading up to Saturday’s event as the two teams faced off at the Anne Springs Close Greenway this past week with the Jackets getting the most of that race, too.

“We are all good friends,” Ruppe said. “It (the trash talking) wasn’t as serious as everyone thinks it was.”

Still the two schools will be squaring off again this week in the Region III-AAAA meet, which will be held on the same course at Northwestern High School Thursday.

For Fort Mill, the County meet and the Region meet are ones that get them ready for the state meet Nov. 3 in Columbia.

“We felt like we needed this to prove ourselves for state,” Ruppe said.

Head coach Marc Pyrc agreed with Ruppe.

“I thought the guys would do it (win),” he said. “I didn’t expect them to do it the way they did. I hope to get more out of them by state. Our guys expect to win region. We are in the hunt.”

Fort Mill girls’ take 3rd

Rock Hill senior Alex Moseley beat South Pointe’s Victoria Burdette by five seconds as the two stayed close to each other the entire girls’ race before Moseley shifted into another gear in the final tenth of a mile to outrun Burdette and finish with a time of 19:32.

Fort Mill came in third followed by Northwestern and Clover to round out the top five places.

The first non-Bearcat or non-Stallion to finish the race was Fort Mill’s Ania Rzepka, who came in seventh.

Nation Ford struggled in the race finishing sixth in both the boys’ and girls’ races. Their highest finisher for the boy’s race was Will Manning in 23rd and the highest finisher for the girls was Leah Thornock in 19th.