RUNNING AWAY WITH IT
Hickory Christian Academy 9th-grader wins cross country meet by almost 3 minutes
Madelyn Jane Carter competes for Hickory Christian Academy during the 2025-26 indoor track season.
Spencer bogle of Hickory leads a group of runners through the course at a conference cross country meet Wednesday in Statesville.
Maiden's Eve Poovey (99) and Nola Queen (101) lead a group of runners through the course at a conference meet in Statesville on Wednesday.
CROSS COUNTRY
Hickory Christian Academy ninthgrader Madelyn Jane Carter could be in line to break the Catawba County Cross Country Championship record, according to her coach, Jon Hata.
Hata is not talking about a few years down the road when Carter is a junior or senior. He's talking about less than two weeks from now when the 2026 meet is held at Murray's Mill on Sept. 30.
"She should be as fast this year, as a freshman, as my daughter Cate was in her prime as a senior," Hata said before the season began in August.
Hata's daughter currently holds the meet record. She broke it in 2023 and then broke her own record the next fall with a time of 19:28.38. It was 53 seconds better than the previous record set back in 2015.
Carter obliterated that time on Sept. 12 at the Wilmington Beach Blast Cross Country meet. It was a different course, but she clocked in at 18:24.48 to win the High School Varsity Girls Division title by nearly three minutes. Croatan junior Reagan Clifton, in the High School Championship Division, was the only runner out of more than 220 who finished the course faster. Clifton finished less than seven seconds faster than Carter.
Carter's performance last weekend was also enough to break Cate Hata's Hickory Christian Academy school record by 13 seconds. It's still early in the season, but so far, it's the best time turned in by a North Carolina freshman girl in any meet this fall.
The field
Carter will face a field of competitors from Catawba County's seven public high schools along with Hickory Christian Academy and University Christian High School.
Carter's strongest competition is likely to come from Bandys junior Andrea Delgado. Delgado won the first Western Foothills Conference meet Wednesday with a time of 24:07.07 at West Iredell. Andrea Barger of Bunker Hill and Neleana Carreno Meji of Hickory also cracked the top 10 in Statesville.
On the boys side, East Lincoln's Billings Bowen ran away with it in 18:36.48. Bandys senior Ansen Earnhardt turned in a time of 19:29.09, good for sixth place.
Hickory's Charlie Bowman didn't run this week, but last weekend he won the Lenoir Opener Invitational with a time of 19:38.93. Cole Caudle, Henry Thompson and Slater Shreve also logged top-10 finishes for Hickory in that meet.
Jason Koon is the Sports editor for the Hickory record and can be reached at jason.koon@lee.net.
