TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – The Florida High School Athletic Association returned to Tallahassee Saturday for the 14th straight year to host their annual State Championship, and Big Bend programs, were well represented.
For the first time since 2018, the Chiles High School girls, are keeping the trophy in Tallahassee. Freshman Emma-Claire Tanenbaum led the way, finishing fifth with a time of 18:33.
“We’ve been working hard all season,” she said of winning the program’s seventh overall state title. “Every single practice we were thinking about hey, we have to go catch those jerseys and we have to go after it.”
The Timberwolves are a young group, and will graduate just one senior this year from their line-up on the girls side.
“That’s the beautiful thing about sport is you continually get better and that’s how you build championship teams,” said head coach Tiahna Vladic.
“Our number five is a freshman, our number four is a freshman,” added assistant coach David Knauf. “We’re building a team and we have folks coming up from the middle school so our job is to continue with the program, and we’re excited about it.”
On the boys side, Chiles had two top five finishers, as former Scholar Athlete of the Week, and recent Florida State signee, Josh Hicks finished third, while teammate Jonathan Kiros took fourth.
The Timberwolves finish third as a team.
Other placers Saturday? In Class 2A, Suwannee’s Logan Haley finished 11th on the boys side, while David Barton represented for the Maclay boys in Class 1A, finished 5th. The Marauders also finished 5th as a team.
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