December - Giles High School

A Buzz Kill for Some, but Not All By Ben DillonIf you read the last article on Giles’ cross-country team, you would know that our runners hadgood prospects of making it to the State meet. Sadly, the skill the team possessed was not enough toadvance past the region meet at Galax this past November. While you might have thought that ourrunners would be in it for the long haul, judging from their spectacular performance at the Gileshosteddistrict meet, you have to takeinto account the wise words of theteam’s head coach, Mark Hubbard.Early in the season, Hubbard pointedout to his runners that skill alonewould not be enough to truly excel in the sport. It had to take thedrive and internal motivation of a truly competitive team to evenparticipate at State, which as our runners saw, did not exist insufficient quantity to land them at the highest competition.However, this wasn’t the end of the season for one athlete.Even though both the girls and boys varsity teams did notplace high enough to earn them a spot at State, there was in factone veteran boy’s runner who did place high enough as anindividual to earn himself yet another chance to participate in theVirginia single A state competition. This is of course referring toSenior cross country runner Jake Munsey is the firstrunner from Giles to win All State since 1999.senior Jake Munsey, who has made running an inseparable partof his life all through his high school career. Jake, who you mayrecall is also Giles’ SCA president (the guy who does theafternoon announcements), has performed superbly throughout the entire season, but has faced a real competition against hisown brother, Luke.The two, it seemed, were both destined for a trip to State due to their excellent yet close race figures, but Luke experiencedan extremely unfortunate fall during the Galax region meet which cost him his much-deserved place. Yet for Jake, it appeared asthough he had a great opportunity for his last cross country season at Giles to finish out with a bang. And what a bang it was. Inhis final 5k of high school, held at an equestrian center in Warrenton, VA, Jake clocked an outstanding 17:05, placing seventhamong some 131 best athletes of the state’s single A division. That meant that Jake had won All State honours, making him thefirst runner of our school to do so since 1999!This was in fact Jake’s third time going to state, but never before has he achieved such formidable results. In an interviewwith the star racer, Jake expressed his thrilled but perhaps not-so modest outlook on his performance. “I felt good about it all. Iwas hoping to get All State with just 10 th place. Even thoughthis was my third year going to State, it still felt like a bigaccomplishment.” When asked whether he thought it had beena good year, Jake replied, “For my senior year, definitely. Forthe team as a whole, I think we performed pretty well.”For future plans, Jake intends to finish out his senior yearwith a decent season of track, and for college go to WestVirginia to attend Concord University, where he hopes to get amaster in history and eventually return to Giles to becomeschool principal. As far as running goes, Jake anticipates he’llbe participating in more cross country besides indoor andoutdoor track during college. So whether in track oracademics, it doesn’t appear Jake will ever run out of breath.22