ONE MOORE: White Plains girls sweeten coach's pending retirement with county threepeat

Joe Medley, The Anniston Star, Ala.
·4 min read

Oct. 21—MCCLELLAN — John Moore hopes to retire a state champion, but seeing the cross country program he built produce a Calhoun County threepeat was a nice early parting gift.

Freshman Maddyn Conn crossed the finish line first in 19 minutes, 54.05 seconds, and White Plains' girls beat second-place Alexandria 36-59 for their third county title in as many years Thursday on the McClellan Course Moore built.

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Moore is set to retire after this season, after helping White Plains cross country reach its place among county powers. The girls now own three consecutive county tites and a third-place state finish. The boys won county in 2019, finished second to Oxford in a tiebreaker a year ago and finished as state Class 4A runner-up a year ago.

Moore's son, Jake, won state individually.

"It's nice," Moore said after leading Thursday's post-race awards ceremony. "To do it when you retire, I was trying to hold back tears when I looked at the girls."

A long-time running enthusiast, Moore will retire in May, after 25 years of teaching and coaching. His contributions include building White Plains a home course on and around the middle-school campus plus courses in Golden Springs and McClellan.

The McClellan course debuted earlier this season and served as the county-meet course for the first time Thursday.

"I'm ready for the next journey, next adventure," Moore said. "The one thing I'll miss is cross country and the relationships I have with all of that."

All five White Plains scorers Thursday finished in the top 15, qualifying as all-county. Anna Strickland took third (20:22.78), Adriana Sotelo ninth (22:21.32), Baylie Webb 10th (22:23.69) and Kate Reeves 14th (23:23.64).

Conn edged Oxford's Katie Keur (20:12.05) by less than a second, another gem in a stellar freshman season.

"It feels good," said Conn, who recorded the fastest 5K time in 4A (19:16) earlier this season. "I wasn't expecting anything like this when I started out. I've gotten better every time."

Strickland, a senior who will run for Jacksonville University, said her stomach started "burning" during the race. She still battled Keur for second place, finishing one-tenth of a second behind her.

Keur missed county and most of Oxford's meets in 2020 with severe shin splints. Her second-place finish helped to put it behind her.

"I'm very proud of it," Keur said. "I was expecting to get third."

Strickland called her freshman phenom teammate Conn "amazing" and soaked in finishing her career as part of three county-championship teams.

"We've worked so hard for this," Strickland said. "It feels really good to finish off strong."

Webb, the top finisher for White Plains' state-champion girls' golf team in May, sees the possibility of finishing her high school career as a state champion in two sports. White Plains' girls have the state's second-best average time, 24 seconds back of Bayside Academy.

"Coach is trying to keep us from getting too big of a head," Webb said. "It just gives us enough confidence that we know we can do it, but it would be really cool to be a two-sport champion."

Calhoun County Cross Country

Team results

White Plains 36, Alexandria 59, Jacksonville 93, Oxford 96, Pleasant Valley 101, Ohatchee 139.

The top 15 girls' finishers from Thursday's county meet at McClellan qualify as all-county:

1. Maddyn Conn (White Plains) 19:54.05

2. Katie Keur (Oxford) 20:12.77

3. Anna Strickland (White Plains) 20:22.78

4. Sarah Sloughy (Jacksonville) 21:09.77

5. Michaela Moore (Alexandria) 21:11.48

6. Emerson Maniscalco (Oxford) 21:27.76

7. Michaela Watts (Alexandria) 21:33.44

8. Macey Roper (Pleasant Valley) 22:09.09

9. Adriana Sotelo (White Plains) 22:21.32

10. Baylie Webb (White Plains) 22:33.69

11. Mattie Todd (Piedmont) 22:48.88

12. Emma Easterling (Jacksonville) 22:53.70

13. JoJo Watson (Alexandria) 22:54.48

14. Kate Reeves (White Plains) 23:23.64

15. Toryn Barnes (Alexandria) 23:27.39

Sports Writer Joe Medley: 256-235-3576. On Twitter: @jmedley_star.