Photo courtesy of Marvin Gentry/AHSAA
Mountain Brook's Reagan Riley won the Class 6A girls cross-country race at the state meet at Oakville Indian Mounds Park on Nov. 6, 2021.
The Mountain Brook High School girls cross-country team regained its place atop the leaderboard. The Spartans won the Class 6A race at the state meet, held at Oakville Indian Mounds Park on Nov. 6.
Mountain Brook had been accustomed to dominating the competition over the last 25 years, but the Spartans girls won the last of 13 consecutive state championships in 2015. Homewood won four of the last five state crowns, but that day in early November belonged to Mountain Brook.
The Spartans claimed half of the top 10, winning the competition in dominant fashion. Mountain Brook racked up just 26 points, compared to second-place Homewood’s 104.
The team was led by junior Reagan Riley, who capped off a dominant season with a win and a time of 17:39. She was followed right behind by teammate Clark Stewart, who ran the race in 18:13. Hunter Anderson (sixth, 18:34), Mary Katherine Malone (eighth, 18:52), Lucy Benton (ninth, 18:54), Kennedy Hamilton (12th, 19:06) and Virgina Averyt (20th, 19:43) all accrued points for the team as well.
“It’s so rare that everybody did so well on the same day, this is one of those occasions,” head coach Michael McGovern said. “All 10 of those girls were on that day. To have eight in the top 21 and to go one and two, those are just some crazy numbers.”
McGovern said that he could tell they were running for each other and that was reflected on the track.
The boys team put forth a strong effort in its quest to claim the program’s first state title since 2017, but Scottsboro scored 47 points to win its sixth straight championship. Mountain Brook ended up with 79 points.
The team was led to its second-place finish by senior Davis Plowden who placed sixth with a 15:47 finish. He was followed by Clayton Collins (seventh, 15:48), Harry Clark (17th, 16:18), Bibb Albright (20th, 16:28), George Pelekis (29th, 16:42), Branum Lloyd (41st, 16:55) and Marc Debruge (45th, 16:58).
“We had a great day,” McGovern said. “My goal everywhere, and we always buy into this, is that we want to run our best in November. They had their best race of the year, it was just that Scottsboro was better that day.”
He added that second place is a great accomplishment and is proud of how the team performed in the championship.
“We're a better team than we were last year and I’m still extremely proud of them,” he said.
