BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – The reason for the pain in the hips of Notre Dame’s Alex Mullin is a lot more obvious to her now.
Mullin, a three-time all-state cross country runner in Class A/AA, recently found out she had a tumor in the hip.
She will have surgery Monday morning to have the tumor removed and still has ambitions of running at the collegiate level.
“I just found out what’s wrong, but it explains why I’ve had these pains for the past three years,” Mullin, who took her sophomore year off to play soccer, said.
She powered her way to a fifth-place finish Saturday, finishing in 20:47.80.
“I was just wanting to come out and do the best that I could,” she said. “I’m not in the best of shape, but I’m happy to see that I was in the top 10. That was my goal.”
Doubly special
The weekend was extra special for Baylor’s Sarah Hencke. Along with being a part of the school’s state championship soccer team, which defeated St. Agnes 1-0 in Friday night’s final, Hencke finished 22nd in the Division II-AA state cross country race as the Lady Red Raiders won another state title.
“Sarah didn’t have her best race, but she’s such an important part of our team,” Baylor coach Heather Ott said.
About the same
Baylor senior twins Rachel and Becca Greenwall ran nearly the exact times in Saturday’s state championships as they did in finishing 1-2 as freshmen for North Oconee High School in the Georgia state cross country meet in 2007.
Rachel’s time of 19:07.50 Saturday nearly mirrored her 2007 state-winning time of 19:07.17, and Becca at 19:22.32 was a shade slower than her 19:21.13 three years ago.
Heritage takes fifth
The Heritage girls’ cross country team took fifth in the Class AAA division of the Georgia state meet Saturday in Carrollton. The Lady Generals finished with 167 points and had two top-15 finishers: Mallory Edwards, who was ninth in 20:15.92; and Natalie Hensley, 13th in 20:22.43.