By By Jeff Byrd / staff writer
Oct. 1, 2002
Around the pasture and the hay bales they went on Monday afternoon here in the Lamar Invitational cross country meet.
Runners from four schools rumbled through the bush-hogged cut fields in the first meet ever run at Eric and Becky Stubbs' Farm which sits right across a brook from Lamar School.
The Raiders won the boys competition in impressive fashion sweeping the top three places. Dave Hicks was the individual winner for Lamar clocking a time of 21.04 over the three-mile course.
Simpson Academy had the top four finishers to easily win the girls competition. Simpson finished with a near-perfect score of 16.
Lamar's Holly Corbitt prevented a Simpson sweep of the top five by finishing fifth in 16:07.
Lamar head cross country coach Ed Abdella was grateful to the Stubbs for getting to run a meet so close to the school.
Some of the girls felt they had run longer than the 2.1 miles.
Callie Osborne and Lindsey Parrish rounded out Simpson's top four. Next came Corbitt for Lamar. Mallory Neely was sixth for Simpson.
Merry Grace Coffin of Lamar was eighth overall at 16:42. Mary Grace Cady was 10th. Elaine Clark and Jamie Henderson rounded out the Lady Raider's top five.
Lamar finished second overall in the girls meet with 57 points. Meridian Christian Home School was third with 74 and Tuscaloosa Academy had 81.
Hicks said the race on the Stubbs Farm provided a unique test.
Right behind Hicks was Latham Farley in second place at 21:31. Lamar's John Blubaugh finished the top three sweep at 21:40.
Tuscaloosa Academy's Jesse Dunn broke the Lamar ranks with a fourth place finish. Cameron Sherrill of Lamar was fifth and Leslie Harrison was sixth to round the Raiders' top five.
Lamar's 17-point total was followed by Meridian Christian Home Schoolers with 56 and Tuscaloosa Academy had 58.
The Raiders and Lady Raiders will take the rest of the week off from competition. They return on Oct. 14 to run the Lamar-Silliman Meet on the Choctaw Trails in Clinton. On Oct. 21, they travel to a meet at Simpson Academy in a final tune up before the MPSA State Meet on the 28th.