Richmond Hill High School junior Amanda Elliott blew away the competition in the girls’ race Thursday in the Wildcats home meet at the Fish Hatchery.

Elliott finished with a time of 20 minutes, 35.9 seconds over the winding 3.1 mile course, much of which she ran on her own. Elliott’s time was nearly a minute and a half faster than that of the second-place finisher, Rayne Cartwright of Effingham County High School.

"Amanda is faster right now than what she was last year at this point in the season," RHHS coach Levi Sybert said. "The time she ran today was very respectable for the course and having to pace herself all alone. The goal is to get her to break 20 (minutes) soon."

Elliott was one of nearly 300 boys’ and girls to race in RHHS’ first home cross country meet of the season. Emily Hollowell and Shanee McKee also turned in top 10 finishes to help RHHS girls place first in the team standings. .Hollowell was fourth and McKee was ninth.

Wildcat Dax Jacobsen, a freshman, was RHHS’ top finisher on the boys’ side, turning in a time of 18:01.5 to place fourth overall.

Island High School’s Sam Hannon finished first in the boys race with a 17:18.3.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad day for a cross country meet, Sybert said.

"The meet went smooth and it was great to get all of the help from the Fish Hatchery and volunteers to make this meet happen," he said. "There was a lot of behind the scenes work done by the Fish Hatchery to get the trails ready and they handled 293 runners today."

Richmond Hill’s teams turned in a solid performance as well, Sybert said.

"I am pleased with how the RHXC squads performed. As a whole, this was not a good day for us, but we still faired well even though we did not perform our best," he said. "We were not far off our best mark, so knowing this was not a really strong day for us and we were still able to perform at a high caliber than last year is good."

Richmond Hill is back at the Fish Hatchery on Oct. 18 for the Fishy XC Invitational.

Boys team results: Benedictine 64, RHHS 77, Effingham County 97, Savannah Arts 99, Ware County 100, Glynn Academy 126, Brunswick 210, Islands 361, Jenkins 305, McIntosh County Academy 503, Windsor Forest 595.

RHHS boys top finishers: 4. Jacobsen 18.01.5; 11. Tanner Hicks 18:31.5; 15. Corey Jones 18:39.1; 23. Clint Martin 19:17.7; 24. Zarius Walker 19:20.7; 28. Gareth Price 19.29.9; 29. Conner Shortridge 19:30.4

Girls team results: RHHS 42, Effingham 49, Savannah Country Day 82, Glynn Academy 113, St. Vincent’s 128, Ware County 162, Islands 282, Brunswick 448, Jenkins NS, McIntosh NS.

RHHS girls top finishers: 1. Elliott,20:35.9; 4. Hollowell 22:08; 9. Mckee 22:58; 11. Rachel Hammesfahr 23:18.3; 17. Chloe Giorgianni 23:52.3; 18. Natalie Davis 23:55.9; 20. Katie Jo Barnes 24:04.6.

See complete results at www.bryancountynews.net.