Friday morning, South Georgia State College’s Dylan Dixon of Alma won the Fort Valley State University Cross Country Opener and Alex Uribe of Hazlehurst finished second overall in the women’s race. Two other Hawks — Jarvis Weaver and Perla Hernandez — also finished in the top 10.
Fort Valley State’s race featured a multi-lap flat, fast course located a few west of I-75. The women ran first and Uribe took off with Fort Valley State’s Montana Williams. They quickly separated themselves from a pair of runners from Georgia Military College — Swarkena Foggy and Paola Lopez — and it wasn’t long before they were running together at the front of the pack. The soggy conditions took their toll on Uribe and in the second lap of the 5K (3.1 mile) course, Williams pulled ahead. Though Uribe wasn’t able to keep up with Williams’s urge, she was still putting time into the runners behind her. In just her second college race, she cruised into a comfortable second-place finish. Behind her came fellow Hawks Hernandez (eighth place) and Lissette Rivas (Coffee County) in 18th.
The men ran after the women. The course was a little drier for them but not by much. When the gun sounded, Dixon quickly established a lead. Morehouse’s Hillary Kipkogel and Georgia Military’s Aidan Rainey gave chase but Dixon only increased his lead over the 8K (five mile) race. At the end of the first lap, Dixon had a one-minute lead over Kipkogel. When he came through the second time, he was ahead by over two minutes. He increased that lead by over a minute on the third (and shorter) lap. Teammates Weaver (eighth) and Nataniel Tapia (12th) rounded out the SGSC line-up.
“It’s been a long time since a South Georgia State runner won a race. We’ve had some recent top-10 finishes but we haven’t had a winner in a while. To have Dylan win and Alex finish second in the women’s race is big for us. Then to have two others in the top-10 as well — this was a really good race for us,” said SGSC cross country coach Robert Preston.
The previous week, SGSC headed up to Council Farms just south of Milledgeville for the annual Georgia Military Brickyard Invitational. Dixon (14th) and Uribe (34th) led the way again for the Hawks.
The Hawks will be in action again on October 4 in the Hawk Invitational on the SGSC campus in Douglas.