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Hunter's Freshman YearTift County High SchoolNortheast Campus Tifton, Georgia Photos courtesy of the Honeycutt family |
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November 25, 2008 Hunter had a great freshman season in cross country. Clearly, this is his best sport of the three needed for triathlon and it showed this season.
He began the season racing in the Tifton Invitational where he won the race with a time of 17.25. He raced next in Lee County where he ran a time of 16:27 — good enough for 1st place. Next was Bainbridge, and he came in 2nd with a time of 17:23. The first real test was the next week at Mercer invitational in Macon; many Atlanta teams attend that race. He ended up 6th overall with a time of 17:03. The next week he attended the race at Westover in Albany and he ran his personal record (PR) for the year with a time of 16:24 and came in 7th. This race included the state champion and numerous Atlanta teams. The team then went to Thomasville where he placed 1st with a time of 16:59.
Region was held this year in Moultrie and Hunter was able to win the region championship title, not only as an individual, but he helped his team to the first team region title in seven years. His time for regions was 16:45. This time qualified him for state, where he placed 44th out of 250 runners in the state with a time of 17:13. This time was good enough to be the first freshman time at state and also earned him the ranking on GATFX.com as the #1 ranked freshman in Georgia 2008. Four 1st place finishes and region champ title! He was thrilled.
Just this week it was announced he was chosen to the “South of the Border” honorary cross country team chosen by GATFX and the top cross country coaches in Georgia. This team consists of the top 7 runners from the South- |
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Metro Atlanta area and South. Another first team is chosen for the top 7 Metro Atlanta athletes. He was the only freshman chosen to either team and most of these honorees go onto represent Georgia at the Footlocker Southeast Regional Cross Country Meet in Charlotte, North Carolina on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. He will run that meet in the freshman race and has a goal to be in the top 10 (perhaps top 5 ) freshman in the southeast. States that will be included are GA, FL, SC, WV, VA, MS, TX, MS, and NC.
Now that cross country is over, Hunter is swimming for the Tift County swim team. There have already been two meets held this year in Tifton. Hunter is swimming the 200 individual medley event and the 500 freestyle as well as swimming in two relays. He placed first in the 500 free at this week’s meet and second in the 200 IM in Tifton and will try to qualify for state in both events by the end of the season, although that may be ambitious for his freshman year. His relays won first (he anchors this 400 free relay) and third(this is the 200IM and he swims fly) as well. Hunter is beginning training for this year’s triathlon season and will start racing in March of 2009 with hopes of going to Nationals in August where he is currently ranked #2 in the nation in Youth elite standings. So far he has maintained a 96 GPA overall in school and has been on honor roll all year. This has been a very busy freshman year and he has handled it beautifully. Update: Hunter competed November 29, 2008 in the Footlocker South Regional Cross Country Championships in Charlotte, North Carolina, and placed 8th in the Freshman Boys race. That was good enough to earn him a gold team finish and the first place Georgian. He ran the 5K course in extremely cold and rainy conditions with a time of 16:43. This was a great race for Hunter to end his freshman year with and earned awesome national exposure. This race had the best runners from GA, FL, TX, TN, SC, NC, AL, WV, VA, AR, KY, LA, MS, OK, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Those states attend the South Regional race and the top ten in the boys seeded race go on to Nationals. This year and next year are preparing him for his junior and senior years. But who knows, maybe next year he will make a go of the seeded race too. | |
