It was great to be a Ravenwood Raptor Thursday afternoon at Sanders Ferry Park in Hendersonville. After missing the state championship last fall due to a stress fracture, Miles Ramer has been looking forward to getting back to the starting line and winning again. In typical Ramer fashion, he went out with the lead pack, letting them do the work upfront while he stayed relaxed until the exciting climax, when he outsprinted Farragut's Matteo Tonnos. Both runners beat the previous Tennessee state meet record.

"I'm so proud of Miles," said Coach Mueller afterwards. "He's so talented, but he works incredibly hard and always runs great tactical races. He is our GOAT and I'm so glad he's going out on top."

Miles was the only upperclassman representing Ravenwood. Freshman Kevin Rocha, Jacob Meucci, and John Schaefer finished 1st, 3rd, and 10th out of all freshman in the race, and sophomores AJ Algood, Robert Hininger, and Wesley Franklin ran great as the Raptors outran their #10 seed to finish fourth overall. With eight out of their top nine runners returning, the guys are already excited about 2024 and beyond.

"Heading into the race Coach Swanson and I figured that we should finish somewhere between 3rd and 7th, so 4th is great. We surprised a lot of teams today, but I wasn't surprised. These guys love to run and they love each other, so I knew they would fight for every place today," said Coach Mueller.

Several of the boys will keep training for a few more weeks as they look to run 3200m PRs and run one more 5K at NXR in Cary, NC.