By Ryan Bisesi
rbisesi@salisburypost.com
SALISBURY — It was a day at the park for the East Rowan boys cross country team.
Perfection eluded East on its home course, but that’s about all that didn’t go right for the Mustangs at Dan Nicholas Park on Monday.
East finished with 20 points in the pre-county meet to win going away. While most Rowan County teams lost a heralded group of senior athletes, the Mustangs’ returnees had 10 runners in the top 15 to finish 24 points ahead of the rest of the pack.
The fiercest competition for East probably came from within themselves, leading to seven top-10 finishes.
“It sounds crazy, but it takes so much for them to be satisfied,” East coach Rick Roseman said. “Even with today’s performance, they’re not real happy — which is a good thing. There’s so much internal competition on the team because the guys are trying to beat each other so much.”
East senior Cole Honeycutt won the race in 17:01, though it was far short of his 16:10 personal record. Honeycutt paced teammate and runner up Brad Oden (17:23). Honeycutt finished 20th last year at the state race and is has the seventh-ranked PR in the state.
East had several members coming off the Providence Invitational Saturday in Charlotte. Monday’s race featured six teams and 103 finishers.
“We had a race Saturday, so I guess we weren’t totally fresh,” Honeycutt said. “I didn’t run that fast of a time, but when I got done, I felt great.”
Carson placed second with 44 points and had a pair of top five finishes in No. 3 finisher Jacob Fink (17:35) and No. 5 Kyle Gillis (17:56).
Alex Reed was the quickest for South Rowan in 18:33, finishing 13th overall. Jonathan Ruiz (19:07) was South’s second-best.
Todd Gabriel (18:38) was West’s top finisher at No. 14. David Uto (20:28) was Salisbury’s first finisher and Neegbeah Reeves (20:51) was first for North Rowan.
Conor Honeycutt, Cole’s brother, was fourth in 17:49. Cal Meyers (sixth, 17:59), Joseph Furtado (seventh, 18:01), Mark Almeida (ninth, 18:05) and Graham Lyerly (10th, 18:13) rounded out the top 5 for East.
“We’re pretty happy with today, but we know we’ve got a ways to go,” Honeycutt said.