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Sunday, Nov. 01, 2009

Tinkey, FPD close GISA era with a bang

Ninth-grader Grace Tinkey and her FPD cross country teammates picked a smashing way to wrap up their final GISA season.

With the Lady Vikings moving to GHSA next year, FPD made its final GISA championship meet count Saturday at the Georgia Industrial Children’s Home, with the Lady Vikings winning their second state title and Tinkey shattering the course record set in last year’s championship meet.

Tinkey’s time of 18:20 shattered her mark of a year ago, 18:46. With three years left at FPD, Tinkey already has a pair of individual state titles, both being at the GISA Class AAA level.

“She’s probably the runner with the best ability that I’ve seen,” FPD head coach April Willingham said. “Her work ethic as an eighth- and ninth-grader is just phenomenal with how disciplined she is.”

But it was far more than Tinkey’s running that carried FPD to the state title. The Lady Vikings placed four runners within the top six individual finishers and five within the top 11.

“We had a really good team this year, and it really helped motivate us to run faster (Saturday),” Tinkey said. “The girls at FPD haven’t won state in a really long time, so this was a good day to do it.”

Behind Tinkey, Jessica Smith, third overall, had a time of 20:36 and Danielle Ferro, fourth overall, wrapped up with a time of 20:38. Those efforts enabled FPD to be credited with a score of 23, ahead of Deerfield-Windsor’s 88. Pinecrest, Westfield and Stratford rounded out the top five.

Mount de Sales, led by Brandon Lasater’s time of 17:04, took the boys AAA title with a score of 51. Pinecrest was second with 83 points, followed by FPD with 92, Deerfield-Windsor with 116 and George Walton’s 133. CFCA’s Dylan Swafford was the top boys finisher with a time of 16:30.

“Going into the race, we knew it could be tight with teams like FPD and Pinecrest. We tried to have them focused and they really stepped up,” Mount de Sales head coach Jeff Dobias said. “We were coming off a really good race in the region meet, and I told our kids that we needed to have that again. They really stepped up (Saturday).”

In AA, Tiftarea won the boys championship, with the girls title going to Frederica Academy.