On a chilly and rainy afternoon, the DMS cross country teams spent a their Saturday battling it out with 31 of the best teams at the Tennessee State XC Middle School Championships.  The race was held at Victor Ashe Park in Knoxville, where over a field of 300 runners in both the male and female divisions competed on the hilly and challenging 2.1 mile course. This marks the second year in a row that both the DMS boys and girls teams qualified for the State Championship Meet. 

Coming off of a 14th place team finish in 2018, the Lady Saints fought hard for an overall and much deserving fifth place team finish this season which earned them All-State Honors.   Only the top five teams are awarded the honor.  

The Saints boys’ team gave outstanding individual performances and placed 20th out of a field of 32 teams this season.  They edged out West Wilson and Macon County  Jr. who had beaten them at the Regional Meet just the weekend before.

"The competition keeps growing and growing each year,” said middle school XC Coach Kristen VanVranken. “This State Meet produced some of the fastest times that I've seen as a coach since 2014.  This group of student-athletes rose to the occasion and left it all out on the course.  It's been amazing to watch how they mentally and physically have seen it through all season long.  I saw some awesome achievements this season from each one of these runners." 

With her first season of running cross country as a middle schooler, Ella Van Vranken led the Lady Saints with a 12th place overall finish and a time of 13:04, which landed her as a member of the All-State Individual Team.   Mya Ruch, now a senior at DCHS was the first DeKalb Middle runner to earn this honor back in 2014 and the repeated the feat in 2015. 

With VanVranken in the top 20, the Varsity girls showed outstanding performances from their top five with each one placing in the top 77 of the 306 runners.  Zoe Keys finishing 43rd at 13:47,  Katherine Knowles 64th at 14:07, Mylip Phillips 14:12, Madeline Martin 77th at 14:13, Sydney Polk 252nd at 16:36, and Maleah Ruch 259th at 16:46. 

In the boys Varsity race,  Kaleb Spears led his team with a 61st place finish and a PR of 12:46, followed close behind by Caleb Gray 108th at 13:13, Ian Colwell 124th at 13:20, Cale Brown 246th at 14:35, Dylan Cathey 280th at 14:55, Sam Harris 314th at 15:37, and Carson Tramel 329th at 16:35.

In the JV race, the DMS boys and girls, some of them first time XC members, had some of their best times of the season.  In a field of 134 runners, Candice Rico placed 56th at 17:27, Sylvia Evans 83rd at 18:33, Sadie Moore 85th at 18:34, Cadence Reynolds 103rd at 19:42.   The boys’ field consisted of 240 runners.  Evan Carmichael was 146th at 16:51, Ethan Spears 181st at 17:32, Jackson Hodges 190th at 17:52, and Mason Tramel 213th at 19:31.