AMERICUS — On Saturday the Southland Academy boys and girls varsity and junior varsity cross country teams kicked off their 2012 season with a home meet at their beautiful and spectator-friendly course on the school’s campus. On a perfect day for a meet, Southland dominated the competition and even had two of its freshman break school records in the season’s first race.

On the boys side, the Raiders varsity team dominated the race and won the competition by more than 20 points. Southland defeated the 2011 region champion Tiftarea Panthers along with region foe Deerfield and many other quality teams to earn the victory. Freshman runner Wright Calhoun was the star of the meet, completing the scenic course in a blistering 17 minutes and 38 seconds. Calhoun’s time earned him the school record for fastest individual time at a cross country meet, and he was very pleased with his results.

“This is only my second year running, and my best time last year was 19 minutes and 57 seconds,” said Calhoun. “It felt really good to win and break the record.”

The Raiders had an impressive showing from their entire team as they placed four runners in the top ten of the meet. Billy Calcutt, Geoffrey McDonald, and Brian Miller finished seventh, eighth, and ninth, respectively, to help lead their team to the dominating victory.

The Lady Raiders also had a strong showing at the meet, taking third place while also having a school record-breaker. Freshman Chris Shattles had a tremendous race, and the young runner broke her own school record by 27 seconds after finishing the race in an amazing 20 minutes and seven seconds. While Shattles was happy with the new school record, she still has a major goal that she narrowly missed in the first meet. “It feels pretty good to break the record, but I was trying to finish in under twenty minutes,” said Shattles. “I had a sore knee the past few days, but we prayed about it and it felt really good today.”

Mary Catherine Calcutt was the only other Lady Raider to finish in the top ten as she brought home an impressive seventh place finish in the contest.

On the J.V. team Sydney Hayes finished third, Calyn Fort finished fourth, and Ryleigh Bell finished eighth to give the J.V. girls team a top ten finish as well. Zach Calcutt led the boys J.V. team to a fifth place finish by placing fourth in the season’s first contest.

With a very successful opening meet under their belt, the Raiders and Lady Raiders will travel to Wesleyan College on Saturday, August 25 to compete in the Tattnall Invitational. If their first meet was any indication of this young team’s potential, then you can expect a big 2012 season from this young Raider squad and a very bright future.