Dutch Fork girls place second at Class 4A cross country state meet
The Dutch Fork girls cross country team completed another outstanding season with a second-place finish at the Class 4A state championship meet Saturday at Sandhills Research Center.
“The girls have had a nice run of consistency the past three seasons, which is a tribute to their dedication and their hard work,” DF coach Barry Lindler said.
Indeed, the Silver Foxes are on a nice roll with three straight region championships, three straight Middle State qualifying titles and three straight top-five state finishes, including back-to-back runner-up efforts.
Beating Riverside at the biggest meet of the season has been the lone stumbling block.
Dutch Fork finished 96 points behind the Warriors. Riverside’s winning total of 20 points was a record for Class 4A and the lowest overall tally in 22 years since T.L. Hanna’s all-time record 15-point performance in 1993.
“We knew it was going to be a challenge to catch up to Riverside because they had everybody back from last year,” Lindler said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t run our best race of the year and they ran very, very well.”
The Dutch Fork boys also cracked the Top 10, placing eighth.
“Overall, I’m very pleased with the seasons we had with both the boys and the girls,” Lindler said. “The goal is to keep striving to improve – week to week and season to season.”
In other Midlands items of note, Pelion’s boys and girls both cracked the top 10 in Class 2A for the 17th time since 1995. The Panther girls have been a Top-10 team 20 times in 21 tries since Class 2A debuted on the girls side in 1995.
The other area Top-10 teams were the Blythewood (5th) and Lexington (7th) boys in 4A, and the A.C. Flora (5th), Chapin (7th) and Dreher (8th) girls in 3A.
Seniors Antoinette Fulton of Pelion, Susannah Cate of A.C. Flora, Hope Whisman of Dutch Fork and Carlos Hernandez of Mid-Carolina were the individual Midlands headliners.
Fulton made the all-state cut for the fifth time, finishing 7th in 2A. Cate became the second four-time all-state runner in program history with a fifth-place effort in 3A. Cate’s time (19:04) seconds was the fastest among all Midlands girls runners. Whisman finished 14th in 4A, becoming the first DF female runner to earn all-state honors three times. Hernandez became his school’s first two-time all-state runner with an 11th-place showing in 2A.
Dutch Fork’s Brianna Hartley (9th in 4A), Blythewood’s Josh Bowers (9th in 4A), Irmo’s Sam Padula (11th in 4A) and Dreher’s Theo Kahler (9th in 3A) and Kathleen Allden (11th in 3A) were the other Midlands all-state runners.
Hartley, a freshman, finished fourth a year ago, but was slowed by late-season illness.
Bowers’ time of 16:11 led the Midlands boys pack.
This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 6:15 PM with the headline "Dutch Fork girls place second at Class 4A cross country state meet."