Coach Wood Invitational (GA)
October 18, 2014 @ Gainesville College in Gainesville, GA
Photo by Jonathan Speights
In annually one of the most competitive meets found in the state of Georgia at the Coach Wood Invitational in Gainesville, Northview junior Lindsay Billings lived up to her billing as arguably the best in her state and one of the fastest this fall in the entire Southeast with a dominant 24 second margin of victory over another Georgia best in Morgan Isle (2nd, 18:24) of Marist. Billings crossed the line in a meet record performance of 18 minutes flat, which was over a minute faster than her 2013 runner-up finish at the Coach Wood Invite. Billings won the Disney Classic in Florida last week with a swift time of 17:36 and appears to be a strong hopeful to qualify for Foot Locker Nationals out of the South Region after finishing 46th in last November's regional race.
The individual race for first came down between a Northview and Marist runner, while the trophy for the team title was decided between the same two squads with Isle's Marist girls (89 pts) able to just hold off race champ Billings and her Northview (90 pts) teammates.
Fast courses or slow courses. Long courses or short courses. Galloway's Reilly Friedman (GA) comes out first on all of them. Coming off two fast course and fast times at Great American (15:15) and the Asics Alexander Invite (14:48), Friedman set a quick pace early on to separate himself from the field at the Coach Wood Invite and never looked back for a 17 second win in 15:50. The senior from Galloway was 29 seconds than his 2013 race for the eventual Georgia state champ last fall.
The Marietta boys, who showed themselves as a potential NXN squad in the Southeast Region with their runner-up finish at Great American two weeks ago, simply dominated many of the best programs in their home state on Saturday. Marietta put 5 boys in the top 20 and had another tight spread of 33 seconds to win the meet by a huge margin of 100 points.