BRINGING HOME THE GOLD: The Thomas County Central XC team holds up their trophies from the Cook County Invitational. Girls placed 1st overall, while the boys placed 3rd.

THOMASVILLE – Thomas County Central’s boys and girls cross country teams had successful showings at last Saturday’s Cook County Invitational.

The girls team finished first, led by Cadence Curnalia’s first-place showing. Emma Grace Vealey and Riley Ambrose each placed in the top 10 individually. The boys team placed third overall.

“We told the kids that it was a breakthrough meet for us, because they finally were starting to see a lot of their times dropping,” said head coach Rosalie Wilson. “Our entire boys team got a personal record of their entire season. We were super proud of them. That’s their first trophy this year that they’ve gotten. They were extremely excited.

“The thing about the boys is that they’re very young. We have one senior on the whole team, and the rest of them are a lot younger. We’ve got a lot of freshmen that were running really fast times. They’re all extremely smart. They like to go look at all the school records from the past cross country teams at Central. They’ll look as far back as the internet will allow them. They’re picking people from 2010 and trying to beat their time. They’re having a good time doing that.”

Curnalia continues to pace the Lady Jackets team. She earned a personal record of 19.59 and beat the second-place runner by more than a minute.

“She was not just flying, but she also was ahead of everybody by a long shot,” Wilson said. “She is doing a really great job. She had been trying to break 21 minutes for the past two years and just hadn’t come yet. This summer she really committed to the summer training. We practiced four days a week this summer, and she was there every time.

“She put in a lot of summer miles. That really helped lay the foundation. She was trying really hard all season to break 21. We told her all last week that this was going to be the race she breaks 21 minutes. It’s going to happen. She didn’t just break 21 minutes, she also broke 20 minutes.”

Central will compete at the Tift Invitational in Tifton, Georgia, on Saturday, Sept. 30.