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Ivey Redmon Sports Complex has two new names atop their course record list as Mary Bonner Dalton (Myers Park) and Noah Valyo (Athens Drive) both broke the course record at the NCHSAA 4A State Championship today.
On the girls side it may have been surprising if Mary Bonner Dalton did not break the course record today. She'd run 17:03 on the full McAlpine course this fall and been dominant throughout the entire season. This is the strongest NCHSAA 4A girls field in recent memory with 12 girls that have broken 18 minutes this fall.
Dalton left them far behind blowing away the field to clock 16:54 to break Carmen Alder's course record of 17:11. The mark also breaks the NCHSAA XC State Championship record for all previous venues by 30 seconds which was held by Sarah Goodman of TC Roberson in 1996 from old McAlpine.
Mary Bonner Dalton committed to Notre Dame last spring.
Her 16:54 from today only trails Nevada Mareno's 16:36 from WakeMed in 2015. The same year Mareno would run 17:46 at the State Championship and finished third at Foot Locker Nationals. Dalton is without a doubt one of the top girls in the country as we'll see play out over the next month.
It also would have placed her 58th overall in the NCHSAA 4A boys race out of 167 finisheres that took place 80 minutes before.
Valyo had run 15:14 on this course already this year and was also expected to make the 7-second jump to break Philip Hall of South View's course record of 15:07 set in 2014. It was a competitive race up front, but just as Valyo did earlier this year at Friday Night Lights he bided his time distancing himself from Raghav Gopalakrishnan and the field over the final half of the race.
He'd kick down the homestetch just under the previous course record running 15:05. His mark only trails Matt Debole's 15:01 from McAlpine in 2001 in NCHSAA XC State Championship history.
Valyo announced his commitment to NC State earlier this fall.
Not to go unrecognized in the boys race, Gopalakrishnan would run 15:15, the seventh fastest time ever at Ivey Redmon in what was an impressive effort from the UPenn commit finishing as runner-up.
Congrats to Mary Bonner Dalton and Noah Valyo on cementing themselves as all-time great North Carolina Cross Country runners. Can't wait to see what the postseason brings!