By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Sports Editor

DAPHNE – The Thompson Warriors and Calera Eagles saw both their boys and girls compete at the 2019 Daphne Invitational cross country meet held at the historical Blakely State Park on Saturday, Sept. 21, and both had noteworthy finishes in an event that featured 205 runners.

In the overall team standings for the boys, the Warriors finished eighth with a total of 257 points, which was just slightly behind Spanish Fort in seventh with a total of 255 points, while St. Paul’s Episcopal won the event with 40 points.

It marked a strong finish from the Warriors who were without lead runner Jace Jones.

Calera’s boys also had several strong finishers, which led to an overall team finish of 15th for the Eagles with 411 team points.

Individually, Thompson was led by Jackson Hamlin and Ethan Jones, who finished the race in 30th and 32nd, respectively. Hamlin clocked in with a time of 18:43.43, while Jones finished with a time of 18:44.52.

Those times were just a shade more than two minutes behind the winning time of 16:30.53 set by UMS-Wright’s Joseph Perry.

The Warriors had two more finishers inside the top 70 thanks to good showings from Jacob Cofield and Erik Bazan. Cofield finished the event in 57th with a time of 19:12.48, while Bazan finished in 66th with a time of 19:26.89.

Calera also had two runners finish inside the top 70 thanks to finishes of 64th and 69th from Cade Galloway and Riley Gay, respectively. Galloway finished the race in 19:24.00, while Gay finished with a time of 19:28.24.

Thompson had two more finishers crack the top 100, while Calera had one more.

The two finishers for the Warriors to do so were Rick Palma and Donny Griffeth in 90th and 94th, respectively, while Calera’s Michael Jones finished in 97th.

Just behind Jones were Zachary Landon Earl in 104th and Lane Busby in 108th, while Thompson’s Ian Boackle finished in 114th.

For Thompson’s girls, it was an even more impressive day thanks to a team finish of fifth, highlighted by a strong showing from Emily Allen. She finished the race in 20:38.36, which was good enough for seventh place out of 147 runners.

She helped the Warriors to a team total of 167 points.

Adding to the strong performance was another top 25 finisher in Lauren Moon. She finished 25th on the dot thanks to a time of 22:22.87. Shelby Rollo and Nancy Kay Sharman both finished in the top 50 with Rollo finishing 43rd with a time of 23:27.40 and Sharman finishing 46th with a time of 23:32.87.

The Warriors saw three more runners finish inside the top 80 of the individual standings with Hanna Casey claiming 61st, Sunni Graber finishing 69th and Laruen Hammett taking home 78th. They finished with times of 24:02.17, 24:23.61 and 25:04.43, respectively.

The final top 100 finisher for Thompson was Emily Standifer in 90th with a time of 25:41.58, while Riana Roper and Krista Brewer closed out the finishers for the Warriors in 105th and 132nd, respectively.

Calera’s girls finished 18th in the team standings and was highlighted by Keely Rollf’s finish of 116th.