The Dawson County High School Tigers boys and girls cross country teams traveled to Carrollton on Nov. 3 to participate in the Georgia High School Association (GHSA) State Tournament. Each team placed sixth overall marking the fourth consecutive top-10 finish for both teams.

Junior Ben McGinnis earned All-State honors with an overall ninth place finish with a time of 17:00:35 to lead the way for the men’s team.

“McGinnis had a fantastic day on Saturday running 17:00 on a very tough course,” said Head Coach Charles Beusse. “He will return as one of the best in AAA next season and be one of the key leaders for the team.”

Seniors Cody Wood, Will Mulberry and Nico Poston along with sophomores Wiley Dennis and Brenden Swafford all posted times of less than 20 minutes to round out the scoring and push the team to their sixth-place finish.

The girls team also finished sixth overall led by Frankie Muldoon’s third-place individual finish. Her time of 20:22:98 grabbed her All-State Honors for the fourth consecutive season and punctuated an outstanding career at Dawson County High School.

“I was pleased with the result and felt that we ended up around where we deserved to be,” Beusse said. “We have quite a bit of youth in our program and to place sixth with many runners having limited experience in championship racing is big.”

Junior runners Jenna LeCours, Evion Reinhardt and Avery Young as well as sophomore runner Molly Muenchen all posted times under 24 minutes and finished the race in a tight pack as they demonstrated the future for Dawson County’s cross country team.

“The chapter on this season has closed, but the page to the next has already been opened,” Beusse said. “I see a tremendous amount of potential in our runners retuning next season and I believe that if they will continue to work hard, next year can be a very good year for us.”