Gaston College opens cross country season with impressive finish

Gaston College opened its 2024 cross country season with an impressive finish at the Pfeiffer Invitational on Saturday.

Sophomore Keirieonna Wilson was team medalist for the sixth time in her career with a 20:50.1 clocking for an eighth-place overall finish in the eight-team, 74-runner event in Misenheimer.

Wilson, who finished 85th in the National Junior College Athletic Association championship meet and third in the Region 10 championships last season, led coach Kody Kubbs' Rhinos to an fifth-place team standing in a meet won by four-year university and six-time defending CIAA champion Fayetteville State.

Two freshman runners had impressive starts to their careers and two sophomore finished with career-best times in Gaston College's season debut.

"I was very impressed with our ladies today," Kubbs said. "We put three in the top 20 after we had a really tough week of workouts so our ladies were racing on dead legs.
"So that was incredibly hard to do and they all performed very well."

A pair of freshman South Point High standouts, Lexi Birtwistle and Maddie Frank, made impressive debuts.

Birtwistle finished 18th (21:45.71) and Frank was 20th (21:52.76).

Sophomores Abbygale King, Abigale Harris and Alayna Cook and freshman Sara Scoggins also competed.

Gaston College returns to action on Sept. 21 when the Rhinos compete in the Yetis Invitational at the Cleveland Community College course in Shelby that will host the Region 10 championships again this season.