Marshall County Mountain Bike Team off to a great start in season four

Jaron Wood, last year's Sophomore State Champion, leads out the Varsity riders in their first lap of the 2016 season.
Jaron Wood, last year’s Sophomore State Champion, leads out the Varsity riders in their first lap of the 2016 season.

COLUMBIA, Tn. –  Season four of the Tennessee Interscholastic Cycling League kicked off this past weekend with Race #1 at Chickasaw Trace in Columbia, TN. The Marshall County team is the 3-time Tennessee State Champions and hope to make it four in a row this season but as always face some great competition from all over Tennessee.

This season, another Kentucky team joined the Tennessee League, the Paducah-McCracken Composite team made up of riders from the three McCracken County high schools.

Marshall County 8th grader, Jaxon Story, won the Freshman race Sunday in the first race of the season.
Marshall County 8th grader, Jaxon Story, won the Freshman race Sunday in the first race of the season.

The Marshals took the top spot on the podium in three of the eight high school races and placed a rider in first in two middle school races. All together, 12 Marshall County team members made podium appearances after finishing their laps of the muddy 5-mile course.

Audrey Grizzard (2015 JV State Champion), took 1st in the girl’s Varsity race, Jaron Wood (2015 Sophomore State Champion) placed 3rd in the boy’s Varsity race, Bobby Jones (2015 Freshman State Champion) took 1st and Grant Wilson 2nd in the boy’s JV race, McKenzie Tack (2015 Sophomore State Champion) placed 3rd in the girl’s JV race, Kyle McClain claimed the 3rd spot in the boy’s Sophomore race, Alyssa McClain (2015 Freshman State Champion) placed 3rd in the girl’s Freshman race and Jaxon Story placed 1st in the boy’s Freshman race.

In the Middle School division, Presleigh Jennings finished 1st among girls while Landon Utley crossed in 1st place for 6th grade boys.  In the 7th grade boy’s race, James Harbison took 3rd.

The fastest 5 mile lap of the day was clocked by Marshall’s Bobby Jones at 20:40.

The boy’s Varsity race was won by Simon Lewis from Williamson County Composite, Emma McVay of Collierville High School won the girl’s JV race, the Sophomore girl’s race was won by Independent rider Eliza Deshon, Sophomore boy’s first place went to Adam Sansone from Collierville high School and Independent rider Peyton Poulos won the Freshman girl’s race.

“All of our riders did a great job and adapted well to the rainy weather and muddy trail conditions”, Coach Steve Beckett said. “We entered the first race of the season with 31 riders and all finished their race which is something they should be proud of. It was a great start to our season, their skills are improving, fitness level and confidence in their riding.”

The next race will be in Knoxville, TN on October 2nd.

Audrey Grizzard and McKenzie Tack lead a group of Varsity and JV riders at the start of the race.
Audrey Grizzard and McKenzie Tack lead a group of Varsity and JV riders at the start of the race.
6th Grade Boys 7th Grade Boys Freshman Boys Freshman Girls
1st Grant Utley 3rd James Harbison 1st Jaxon Story 3rd Alyssa McClain
4th Gunner Boatright 2nd Clay Austin
5th Carter Green Middle School Girls  7th Joseph Roberts Sophomore Boys 
7th Jace Story 1st Presleigh Jennings 8th Kaleb Cosby 3rd Kyle McClain
9th Chase Binkley 5th Olivia Myhand 10th Carson Denfip 7th Drew Coleman
12th Kaden Jameson
Sophomore Girls JV Boys Varsity Boys
4th Grace Boatright 1st Bobby Jones Varsity Girls 3rd Jaron Wood
2nd Grant Wilson 1st Audrey Grizzard 6th Bailey Mohler
JV Girls 13th Alex Parker 7th Travis Tack
3rd McKenzie Tack 9th Colton Adrian
10th Isaac Bayer

team