The Long County Blue Tide cross country program has been arguably the most successful athletic program of the last five years. The team looks to do much of the same for the 2024 season as they look to win a third straight region championship for the boys and competing for another with the girls.
Going back to the 2020 season, the Blue Tide have had at least an individual win the region championship every season, with the 2023 season being their best so far. The boys’ team won its second straight region title while the girls team finished as the runner up. Individually, both rising senior Shawn Young and rising junior Macey Higgason won the region titles for the boys and girls divisions.
Both teams advanced to the state meet, a first in team history, and they are looking forward to doing the same in 2024. Head coach David White talked about how their previous success has been paramount to the team continuing to have future success.
“Because of success previously… the program and number of kids has just grown, gotten larger and larger. We are also getting more support from the middle school with them starting a program there. That’s piqued the interest of some of the kids,” White said. “These kids are ones that thought they weren’t good enough to play any other sport or they are trying to get in shape for their ‘main’ sport later on in the year. They realize this not only helps them with that, but they are able to be successful in this sport as well.”
White tells a story of a former runner, Orlando Tellez-Baltazar, who ran only to stay in shape for soccer. However, he knew Tellez-Baltazar was close to breaking through and he challenged him to run extra hard at a meet in Ware County, which he won.
Tellez-Baltazar was runner up in the region in 2020 and won the individual region title in 2021, his senior season.
Despite having the success of sending several runners to the state meet over the last few years, the Tide have yet to have a runner end up on the winner’s podium, top 10 in the state. That is a goal for the team this year and White says that the team is making improvements to prepare for the physical landscape of the trail in Carrollton, where the state meet is held every year.
“We go to Jaycee Landing in Jesup every Wednesday to run the big hill that leads to the boat ramp now. We are also in the process of getting a new trail cut for a hill on campus,” White said. “We are trying to get more hill work in and prepare to run hills, because that’s all state is. State has a lot of hills up around Atlanta. The kids aren’t used to running hills and as much work as we have done in the past with the little hills that we have, it’s still not enough to get them prepared to go up there and compete.”
White talked about wanting every runner to set themselves a goal for the season and try to complete. While only one runner wins the region and only a handful get to place at state, White is still very aware of how important every runner on the team is.
“I tell them every kid on the team is just as important as the next kid,” White said. “The reason being is because that last kid is pushing the kid right ahead of them to do better because they don’t want to be last. That goes all the way up to the top. Each kid is pushing the one in front of them to make that other to continue to be better than the one behind them.”
Overall, the expectations are simple for the team.
“I expect our boys to win their third region championship in a row and I expect our girls to be region champions if not in contention for the region championship, at least. They should be battling for the region championship,” White said. The starting gun fires on Thursday, August 15 as the team starts their season at the Bradwell Institute Tiger Invitational.