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.”
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factbox1-B822516011Z"2012 York County Cross-Country Championship Key: Clover (C), Fort Mill (FM), Nation Ford (NF), Northwestern (NW), Rock Hill (RH), South Pointe (SP), York (Y) Girls’ results 1) Rock Hill 31, 2) South Pointe 51, 3) Fort Mill 69, 4) Northwestern 97, 5) Clover 126, 6) Nation Ford 152, 7) York 210. Girls’ top 10: 1) Alex Moseley (RH) 19:32, 2) Victoria Burdette (SP) 19:37, 3) Jaclyn Baker (RH) 19:53, 4) Madison Goode (SP) 19:53, 5) Lanie Jo Knight (RH) 20:08, 6) Kaitlyn Potter (SP) 20:39, 7) Ania Rzepka (FM) 20:43, 8) Alicia Sanchez (NW) 20:43, 9) Melissa Smith (FM) 20:44, 10) Amber Worthy (RH) 20:44. Other Fort Mill finishers: 11) Meagan Allen 20:57, 16) Emily Lyons 21:15, 26) Jessica Brugh 22:07, 28) Allyssa Resech 22:09, 37) Jessica Harris 23:17. Nation Ford finishers: 19) Leah Thornock 21:32, 20) Polly Goss 21:42, 35) Jordan Wright 22:53, 36) Mariah Emenhiser 23:16, 42) Emily Wyndham 25:01, 45) Briana Iorio 25:14. Boys results 1) Fort Mill 18, 2) Northwestern 48, 3) Clover 87, 4) Rock Hill 106, 5) South Pointe 119, 6) Nation Ford 148, 7) York 225. Boys’ top 10: 1) Christian Ruppe (FM) 16:10, 2) Lucas Stalnaker (FM) 16:12, 3) Mason Lenox (NW) 16:23, 4) Matthew Case (FM) 16:29, 5) Cameron Ruppe (FM) 16:39, 6) Jeremy Ricks (FM) 16:39, 7) Loftin Bridges (SP) 16:40, 8) Jason Witry (C) 16:42, 9) Christian Acker (NW) 16:48, 10) Thomas Bennink (RH) 16:54. Other Fort Mill finishers: 17) Mitchell Scholten 17:26, 18) Clay Pratt 17:26. Nation Ford finishers: 23) Will Manning 17:38, 27) Luke Christison 17:50, 30) Landon Grook 17:59, 32) Cleve Fisher 18:08, 36) Ben Hardymon 18:24, 39) Nick Carmeci 18:36, 41) Jake Storms 18:45.
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.