Roanoke County’s Green Hill Park was swarming with runners from early in the morning until late afternoon last Saturday as Cave Spring played host to the annual “Knights Crossing” cross country meet.

The event is one of the largest of its kind in the state. Team winners in the high school “Red” Division, for the larger schools, were the Oakton boys and the Blacksburg girls. Salem competed in the Red Division and the Salem girls were 14th among 34 teams while the boys were 24th among 38. Katelyn Crumpacker and Anna Pitts went 1-2 for the Spartan girls both breaking 22 minutes. Alyssa Ingerson, Alexis Stover, Emma Chamberland, Claire Peterson, and Carolina Bowen rounded out the Spartan team. Zach Hoyer led the Salem boys with a time of 18:13, followed by Christian Crawley, Gavin Conner, Aiden Sable and Nathan Helems.

Glenvar also ran in the “Red” Division and the girls placed 10th. Freshman Carly Wilkes finished fifth overall at 18:58.40 and Rachel Millirons was 23rd at 20:28.8. Also scoring for the Highlanders were Becky Linkous, Gabriella Stanley and Rachel Smith. The Glenvar boys, running with the big schools, finished 30th. Brendan Killeen led the Highlanders with a time of 19:12.80 and also scoring were Adren Jacobs, Bryant Loftis, Churchill Wilkinson and Carsen Cain. The Salem and Glenvar teams were scheduled to run a meet at the Salem Municipal Golf Course on Wednesday. This will be the first race run on the new course. “We start and finish on the 9th fairway down on the level area,” said Salem coach Tom Roth. “The course will circle the outer edges of the course for approximately one and a half miles then, the runners will run on some of the fairways and loop around the course. Mike Kummer and Tony Wirt first laid out the course.”