Heathwood Hall’s Nasir sets state cross country record

Maryah Nasir ran her personal-best time at the SCISA 3A state cross country meet Saturday morning.

The Heathwood Hall sophomore’s time of 18 minutes, 16.86 seconds was also a school best, a SCISA state best, and was the fifth-best girls time in a state meet for all school classifications.

“I felt like I was doing a really good job, doing my best,” she said. “I did the best I could.”

Nasir’s time helped the Highlanders finish fifth as a team, well behind state champion Ashley Hall and Ben Lippen.

“I’m super excited for Maryah. She was the favorite coming into today, she’s won every race she’s competed in except for one,” said Heathwood Hall coach Willis Ware, whose team was the state runner-up last year. “We lost five of our top seven runners from last year, so we’ve treated this year like a rebuilding year. Our goal was to finish in the top half, which we didn’t quite do, but I’m extremely pleased with their effort. We’re a young team.”

Ashley Hall won the meet with 31 points with four of their top five runners finishing in the top 10. Ben Lippen took second with 77 points. Emily Betts finished in second place at 18:25.83. Katie Kendall finished (10^th), Adeline Cagel (11^th), Lindsey Fadel (26^th) and Sarah Stevens (32^nd) rounded out the Falcons’ top five.

“They ran their hearts out, one through seven,” Ben Lippen coach Thomas Fisher said. “We had a lot of PRs (personal records), three girls in the top 11. They’ve been working hard all season.”

In the 3A boys race, Wilson Hall tied with Porter-Gaud for 69 points. With the tiebreaker going to the sixth runner, the Barons took the title with Rhett Howell finishing 27^th, ahead of Porter-Gaud’s David Butts, who finished 35^th.

“We’d come in second place six times in the last fourteen years, so we knew we were going to have a chance today,” Wilson Hall coach Tom O’Hare said. “We knew that it wasn’t going to come down to our 1-2-3 guys, but it was going to come down to our 4-5-6 guys.”

Andrik Rivera-Nasala was the top Barons finisher, taking fourth place with a time of 17:15.59. Behind him were Drew Reynolds (9^th), Matthew Tavarez (14^th), Brayden Fidler (17^th), and Bryce Lyles (25^th).

Thomas Sumter’s Hunter Jarvis was the top individual finisher, coming in at 16:01.43. Right behind him was teammate Josh Ladson with a time of 16:53.71 The Generals took third place as a team.

3A State Meet