Rolesville’s first conference title comes in boys cross country; Knightdale girls take Greater Neuse River

Those running Rams from Rolesville High are going to remember what happened on Wednesday for a very long time.

With its inaugural senior class finally in place, the Rams finally got the school’s first team championship in the Greater Neuse River 4A.

It came on the boys’ side of the cross country championships at Wendell Park, when the Rams finished with 65 points to nose out Southeast Raleigh’s 69 and Clayton’s 70.

In the girls’ competition, junior Aleena Cruz and sophomore Rebecca Davis repeated their 1-2 finish from last season, leading Knightdale to 59 points while second-place Garner came in at 72, Rolesville 87 and Harnett Central 99.

West Johnston was defending champ in both races.

“I knew it was going to be close,” said Rolesville coach Michael Grether, who has been head coach since the school opened. “I knew from the scores that any one of four teams could win it, but if the guys had the race of their lives we could do it.”

Knightdale has one of the Triangle’s best traditions on the track, but the victory in the girls’ race on Wednesday cut into West Johnston’s recent distance dominance.

“I really thought we would finish first,” veteran Knightdale coach Batey said. “I told our girls we could. Last year Aleena was first and Rebecca was second, and I told the girls if they did the same thing and everyone else did their part we would win it.”

Southeast senior Jason Putnam defended his title in the boys’ race with a run of 16:36.69, comfortably ahead of second-place LaDerique McNeill of Harnett Central who was all alone at 16:51.

“I was expecting it to be a bit harder,” Putnam said. “I don’t know what happened to everyone else. I just kept running.”

Said McNeill, “I was expecting it to be closer for second, but I just did my own thing.”

Garner’s Billy Knabe outkicked West Johnston’s Rufus Brown right before the tape, running a 17:06.05 to the Wildcat runner’s 17:06.30.

Clayton’s Banks Evans finished fifth at 17:17:43, with teammate Ares Epps in sixth at 17:18.43.

Then came Rolesville’s top two, with junior Stephen Strong at 17:20.34 and classmate Matthew Mims at 17:21.43.

“Today was a great race,” Strong said. “We just knew if we all set personal bests today we would do great.”

In the girls’ competition Cruz finished at 20:32.19 and Davis at 21:07.34.

“We knew it was important to finish in the top 10 and see what our teammates could do behind us,” Cruz said.

And then they had to wait for help.

“I just know in a race like this I need to run as well as I can and stay with Aleena,” Davis added.

Clayton freshman Faith Raynor was third at 21:28.32, with Southeast’s Eboni Roberson fourth at 22:02.47 and West’s Jackie Koger fifth at 22:07.01.

“I wasn’t really expecting to be in the top three,” Raynor said. “I was kind of trying to chase the Knightdale girls.

No other Knight finished in the top 10, but freshman Zaporie Moore’s 11th-place finish at 22:53.71 was big help in the Knightdale quest.

This story was originally published October 14, 2015 at 9:39 PM with the headline "Rolesville’s first conference title comes in boys cross country; Knightdale girls take Greater Neuse River."