Seymour Cross Country Track Doing Well

By: Lee Ramsey
lee@seymourherald.com
The Seymour Eagles and Lady Eagles Cross Country teams have been working hard and it is paying large dividends.
“This has been a pretty good cross country campaign for us so far,” said Seymour Cross Country Coach Richard Allen. “Our kids have worked as hard as any I have ever coached.”
Coach Allen went on to explain that the Eagles practices have involved a great deal of long distance running because this team is somewhat inexperienced even though the Eagles have a number of upperclassmen and he has been trying to give them a feel for how much to actually compete in a meet.
The Eagles have had consistently strong performances from senior Owen Schumacher.
“This is his first year running for us because he ran for King’s Academy up to his sophomore year and sat out his junior year after transferring to Seymour (TSSAA rules),” said Allen.
Owen has finished first overall in two meets, one at Pigeon Forge and one at Gatlinburg Pittman. He finished 2nd to Sevier County’s Patrick Hanlon in the county championships at GP. He also finish 5th early in the season at Cocke County against a field of very strong competition.
Other boys who have performed well are Owen's brother Patrick (sophomore), Zack Glovak (senior), Michael Anderson (senior) and Donovan Sharp (junior). Also, there have been a number of wrestlers to join the team and they have been very helpful. Trent Williams, Nick Phillips, Kyle Brewer and Zack Looney have added depth to Seymour’s team and have worked hard throughout the fall.
Lady Eagles Samantha Ferguson and Blakely Graham have led the way. Both have posted good finishes. They finished 1st and 2nd in one of our Pigeon Forge meets and they have placed in the top-10 in virtually every other meet, including the county championship where they were 4th and 6th respectively.
Experienced runners Seaira Mitchell (junior) and Savanna Goodin (junior) are back and running well.
Newcomers Emily Logue (senior) and Rylie McClurg (freshmen) have added depth to the team.
Seymour recently competed in their only home meet of the season in Seymour behind The King’s Academy. The run was 3.1 meters on roads which was a mixture of hills and level stretches.
Gatlinburg-Pittman took the boys competition as a team however Seymour’s Owen Schumacher won the entire race as an individual with a time of 17:30.
On the girls’ side, the winner was Seymour’s Samantha Ferguson and the runner-up was Blakely Graham, also of Seymour. Their times were 22:21 and 23:22.
Next up for Seymour is the regional at Daniel Boone on Oct. 27th.