By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Powered by a freshman class, Burlington Christian Academy won the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association’s Class 2-A state championship in cross country.
Meanwhile, Bradford Academy’s girls won the similar designation for Class 1-A schools, also in the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association.
BCA
The Royals overwhelmed the team aspect of the competition for the first team title for any girls’ sport at the school.
“Our girls really came out strong,” coach Josh Tucker said. “All season, to have really our top six within such a close spread.”
BCA had four of the top six finishers and all five of its scoring runners among the first 14 to cross the finish line in Friday morning’s state meet at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary. All the team’s scoring runners are freshmen, led by the Bork twins.
The Royals registered 32 points to runner-up Hickory Christian’s 61.
Blakeley Bork led BCA in third place in 18 minutes, 57 seconds, marking a school-record for a 3.1-mile race. The Royals had the next three spots with Ellianna Bork (19:42), Mary Katherine Parham (20:00), and Adalynn House (20:07). Sarah Chambers (21:53) was 14th.
“Early on, we really recognized that we had some freshman girls who ran together,” Tucker said.
Tucker said competing in a variety of invitationals helped the BCA team throughout the season.
“It was good to have other runners push our runners,” he said.
Tucker is a first-year coach at BCA. He moved to Alamance County as he has a job in Chapel Hill at the University of North Carolina, and his wife, Brittany Tucker, works as a student support specialist at BCA. Josh Tucker’s coaching background was in ice hockey as a club coach for colleges in Virginia, though he has been a runner as an adult.
Bradford
Bradford Academy of Mebane captured the NCISAA’s Class 1-A state championship in girls’ cross country.
Bradford had three of the top nine runners, including the runner-up, in the race Friday at WakeMed Soccer Park.
[Story continues below team photo.]
Bradford’s Martha Ann Crotts finished second in 21 minutes, 43.53 seconds across the 3.1 miles.
Teammate Megan Papaneri was third in 22:03.30, while Daisy Thrasher was ninth in 23:29.01. Meredith Fairchild of Bradford finished 17th in 24:44.23.
In the team standings, Bradford had 13 points to runner-up Oakwood’s 17 among seven teams. Eloise Clark of Oakwood was the individual champion in 21:21.13 in a field of 34 runners.
