Bryson City – For the second straight week, the Robbinsville cross country team traveled to Kituwah Mound.
For the third straight week, the Knights will return to the course.
Following a solid performance at the Jan. 6 Smoky Mountain Conference championship meet, Robbinsville qualified for the 1A Western Regional meet, which will be held at the mound Saturday.
“The improvement that has taken place during this season really showed for our runners,” head coach Kaitlyn Carringer-Adams said. “We are extremely happy to have everyone qualify for regionals.”
The Lady Knights’ lone representative this season – senior Ava Barlow – was the only Robbinsville runner to receive All-Smoky Mountain Conference honors, finishing seventh overall with a time of 22:36.05.
“It is a tough course,” Barlow said. “Last week was a little chiller, so I felt better today. I’m excited about next week and, hopefully, I can qualify for state.”
As a unit, the Black Knights tallied 88 team points, good for fourth place and an automatic bid at regionals. Hayden Stewart (10th place, 19:04.89) and Xander Wachacha (12th, 19:17.87) were named All-Conference honorable mentions, with William Cable barely missing the distinction (15th, 19:40.10).
“Our goals for regionals is to keep improving as individual runners and as a team,” Carringer-Adams said. “We have hopes of getting new (personal records) on this fast course, with strong competition and better individual/team placements, compared to last year at regionals.
“We are already so far ahead of where we were at this time last year, and I have hopes that the improvement will keep on.”