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Team runs at Wesleyan
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The Dawson County High School cross country team recently participated in a meet at the Wesleyan School.

Jade Perry led the Lady Tigers at the Sept. 15 event with a time of 23:16 and a 41st place finish out of 99 total runners.

Teammate Savanna Estes crossed the finish line in 45th place with a time of 23:46.

Allie Buchalski from Johns Creek won the individual championship with a time of 18:35.

Runner-up went to Kathryn Foreman from Landmark Christian (18:52).

Also competing in the race for Dawson County were: Cassidy Lecours (24:31), Taylor Grindstaff (24:37), Sara Bywaletz (25:38), Christine Schmid (26:49), Megan Spillane (27:01), Carley Glaze (27:09) and Bethany Auten (28:33).

The girls race was competitive with four schools ranked in the top 10.

Wesleyan is ranked No. 2 in Class AA and finished third as a team.

Landmark Christian, First Presbyterian Day and Mount Pisgah Christian are ranked Nos. 1, 2 and 5 respectively in the private school league.

Winning the team title was Johns Creek with 58 points followed by second place finisher Collins Hill with 62 points. The Lady Tigers came in 10th place with 261 points out of 12 teams.

"The girls had a rough go at Wesleyan," said coach Brian DeRose. "We were missing four runners due to injury. Our No. 3 runner, Cassidy Lecours, had a great race and is coming on strong. Savanna Estes and Jade Perry are our solid one and two runners on the team. Once we get healthy, the girls might surprise some folks at region."

On the boys side, Tiger Dylan Forrester ran a great race and finished in sixth place out of 112 runners with a time of 17:23.

"Dylan Forrester had a good race. He went out strong with a select group at the meet and didn't fall off pace much. He is improving every week. Dylan has a good shot to qualify for state as an individual," DeRose said.

Chris Bywaletz and Jake Hafermalz also ran well for Dawson County.

Bywaletz finished the course with a time of 18:11 for 22nd place, while teammate Hafermalz crossed the finish line in a time of 18:58 for 37th place.

Other Tiger runners were: Avery Cowart (20:04), Mason Carr (20:20), Ben Drew (21:03), Cole Simmons (21:31), Craig Butler (22:14), Mason Bearden (22:35) and Drew Kellar (22:47).

Collins Hill took the top four spots in the race. Winning the individual race was Daniel Ellis (17:04) followed by his teammate Jon Moses (17:05).

Collins Hill also took the team title with 24 points, and was followed by second place finisher Johns Creek with 77 points.

Dawson County came in ninth place out of 13 teams with 206 points.

"The boys ran well," DeRose said. "Most of them reached the times they ran in the opening race in Athens. Both the boys and girls teams are around fifth in the region with the top four teams going to state. Both teams are going to have to have great races at region to make it to state."