August 14 Three Ridges Challenge
August 23 Scots Opener
September 6 Cherokee Classic
September 13 The Mounds #1
September 18 Roane State
September 20 Norris Dam Invitational
September 27 Victor Ashe Invitational
October 2 Cove Lake Invitational
October 18 The Mounds #2
October 18 KIL
Carolina Areheart – Webb – JR – All Metro 1st team
3 individual wins including the Valkyrie Invitational in Louisville
7 top 5s including 2nd @ KIL, 3rd @ D2AA State
Also finished 6th @ FL South and 2nd @ NXN SE
17:02 PR @ NXN SE
Campbell Asti – West – FR – All Metro 2nd team
4 top 10s
2 top 5s including first individual win @ the Roane State All Comers Meet.
8th overall @ KIL
4th @ Region 2 AAA
45th @ State and the 5th fastest freshman
19:42 PR @ KIL
Ana Berkheimer – Hardin Valley – SO – All Metro 2nd team
This was Ana’s first season of running
3 top 10s including 9th @ KIL
2nd @ Region 2 AAA
After running a 22:55 and placing 46th at the Victor Ashe Fall Classic, finished 2nd at Regionals (dropping over 2 1/2 minutes off her first attempt at the VAP course)
28th @ State in 19:34
19:31 PR
Caitlin Daniels – Catholic – FR – All Metro 2nd team
3 top 15s
1 top 10
6th @ KIL with a PR
14th @ D2AA State the 11th fastest time amongst all freshman, improving her time from the start of the season by nearly 2 minutes.
19:19 PR
Calysta Garmer – Webb – JR – All Metro 1st team
5 top 10s
4 top 5s including 4th @ KIL and 1st @ D2AA State
17:33 PR
Jazzlyn Garmer – Webb – JR – All Metro 1st team
6 top 10s
4 top 5s including 1st @ KIL and 2nd @ D2AA State
Sub 18 in all races except for 2 (18:04 & 18:05)
Also finished 7th at both NXN SE and FL South (where she ran her PR)
17:16 PR
Drew Gerken – Catholic – FR – All Metro 1st team
6 top 10s
2 top 5s
10th @ KIL
8th @ D2AA State
Finished with the second fastest time amongst all freshman in the state
18:20 PR
Dylan Job – Oak Ridge – JR – All Metro 2nd team
3 top 5s at Norris, Cherokee, and The Mounds
1 individual win @ Mounds #1 and setting the first course record there
Also, 20th place at Southern Showcase in Huntsville
18:16 PR
Ava Moody – Anderson Co. – JR – All Metro 1st team
7 top 5’s including 3rd @ Southern Showcase in Huntsville
5 individual wins including Region 2 A/AA and State A/AA
Course record holder at The Mounds
17:38 PR
Livi Ray – Catholic – FR – All Metro 2nd team
4 top 10s
2 top 5s including 5th @ KIL
9th @ D2AA State with 4th fastest time among all freshman
18:43 PR
Emma Roberts – Maryville – SR – All Metro 1st team
7 top 10s
5 top 5s
4 wins including Blount County Championships and Region 3 AAA
20th @ State AAA
18:29 PR
Avery Jo Thomas – Heritage – JR – All Metro 2nd team
5 top 10s
3 top 5s including 2nd @ Blount Co. Championships and 2nd @ Region 3 AAA Champs.
27th @ AAA State
18:55 PR – school record
Ariana Vargas – Webb – SO – All Metro 2nd team
3 top 10s including 7th @ KIL
15th @ D2AA State
Finished 5th overall in the freshman/sophomore race @ Footlocker South
19:15 PR
Alexandra Vesser – Hardin Valley – SO – All Metro 1st team
3 top 5s including 3rd @ KIL and 1st @ Region 2 AAA
19th @ AAA State
She lead her team to a 2nd Place finish @ KIL, 1st place @ Region, and a 5th Place @ State
18:29 PR
by Coach Ed Wright
This years CoY is someone who should have won this several times already. He’s coached multiple state champs and national finalists. He’s a coach that is well respected by his colleagues and his athletes. I have enjoyed the years of competition between our teams and look forward to seeing what else his teams accomplish. This years CoY is coach Sean O’Neil from Catholic.
by Coach Chelsea Osborne
Freshman Year — short, skinny, but scrappy but ruthless!!
Freshman year — Carter would just run, did not care about zones, did not care about paces, mileage per week. Carter just walked out the door in sequoyah hills and run.
Comparing Athletes I’ve worked with
I’ve been fortunate to work with so many great student athletes with different talent levels, all had so many ways how they would approach the sport. Some complete analytical, some made the sport their life, lived, breathed it etc.. Carter though he was none of that..
Carter life on the field and OFF
Carter was a person with a lot of passion for life in general, he had his hands in everything.. Start with his family, extremely close to his parents Jeff and Tiffany (great parents to work along side with for 4 years. and his twin sister which is the boss of the two Abigail (miss our awesome convos Abgail) in school – top of his class, student government, in several clubs in school and part of many organizations outside of school.
Saying that Carter was not someone that would not sit at home and go through milesplit or let’s run etc… analyze training and or put the sport on top pedestal. He was someone that would show up to practice and knew how to be present at practice and at races then knew how to leave the sport at practice and move on with the day..
HOW COACH SAW HIM DAILY AMONG TEAM and How easy to Coach
While at practice Carter was attention to detail though, he stayed engaged and present at practice. Always supporting his teammates at practice and at meets no matter what place he finished at the race he would turnaround and wait for everyone to finish and congratulate or encourage every competitor in the race after each race.
Ruthless at RACES!!!
When it came to racing, again he knew how to turn on and turn off. He was one of the most competitive athletes I’ve ever worked with. His willpower to put every race on the line stood apart from everyone he would compete against.
RACE HIGHLIGHTS – Soph 3200, JR year Mile and Footlocker Nationals
Sophomore year state seeded 6th going into the 3200 on a 95 degree afternoon he decided to go ahead and run as fast as one could from the gun where he led the entire race until the final 300 meters and finished 2nd overall.
His JR year ran to this day one of the most exciting races ever watched. Prior to the race I would complain as coach that his kicked lacked at the end of races and I would pound that. Well the final 200 meters the race between Carter cheeseman and Carter Couphlin went to the end and Couphlin out-leans with a time of 4:20.17 and chessman 4:20.20 to win. “Coach what you think about my kick now.. footlocker finals his coach at wake Forest put a challenge to him to finish finish all – American. Carter out-leans for the 15th spot and finished national all American.
Carter simply knew how to grind it out at races..
Carter continued to help build the already great tradition of the program
His fours years part of Webb xc and track family Carter I can stay continued to help keep the tradition of our program strong and stable.. Each day he came to school and practice followed through with the mission and values of our program..
Carter STATS
2017 Foot Locker All-American…
Carter help lead Webb to 3 TEAM Titles
Three-time Cross Country State Champion (2015, 2016, 2017)
2017 Track State Champion in the 1600m and 3200
Three-time PrepXtra Cross Country Runner of the Year…
2017 Tennessee Gatarade Runner of the Year
Last great stat —
First Knoxville area athlete to beak 15:00 at the Cherokee Blvd course.
Ladies and gentlemen help me congratulate the induction into the metro all of fame Carter Coughlin
by Coach Bobby Holcombe
I’m here tonight to introduce one of the finest athletes that ORHS has ever produced. Let me tell you a little bit about her accomplishments as a runner, as a student and nurse, and as a person.
She was a member of our girls’ cross-country team during one of the best 5 year runs in our proud history. She ran in 14th place on the 1997 State Runner up team; 16th place on the 1998 State Runner-Up team; 15th place on the 1999 State Champion team; and State Champion with a time of 17:40 for three miles on the 2000 State Runner Up team.
Counting the 1996 State Champion team, this five-year run gave ORHS 2 State Champion teams and 3 Runner-Up finishes. The 2000 State Champion Cross Country team is the only undefeated team in ORHS history, winning the Kingsport, Tennessee Classic, Great American, and Furman Invitational championships, and the Region 2 championship.
In addition to her 2000 State Cross Country Championship, she won 4 State Track championships, winning the 3200 meters in 1999 and 2000, the 1600 in 2000 and 2001. The year 2000 saw her win the 3200 and 1600 and finish 2nd in the 800 in track and then win the individual state championship in cross country. That’s quite a year.
She went on to star at Belmont University in Nashville in both sports, track and cross country, winning the Presidential Scholar Athlete her senior year. She won multiple All-Conference awards and academic All-Conference awards at Belmont. She continues to run to this day, now specializing in marathons, triathlons, and ultra distance races.
She has a nursing degree from Belmont and a Masters in Nursing from Vanderbilt University and worked for a decade in women’s health and fetal medicine. She also has taken medical mission trips to Ghana, Moldova, Romania, and Mexico.
She is married to Josh Thurman, and the mother of 5 children with the 6th coming next month. She lives in Franklin, Tennessee, just south of Nashville.
I give you an amazing athlete, student, professional, wife and mother, Sarah Damen Thurman.
by Coach Jim McNamee
Tonight you’ll get to hear from the two men besides my dad who have had the most influence on my life: Jim McNamee, a Hall of Famer with 9 state titles to his resume, who handed me the best athletic program in the history of Oak Ridge High School, who coached me as a teenager and who mentored and inspired me as a track and cross country coach, and who gave me the room to take it where I wanted to go, and Sam Roberts, who I am here to introduce as our 2024 Hall of Fame coach. So rarely do we get the opportunity to publicly acknowledge the people who help make us who we are.
Sam has all the credentials you’d want for this coaching award: 9 times his athletes at West won state xc titles, he won boys and girls state team titles and a state track title. He coached more than 60 state champions, had more than 50 NCAA scholarship athletes, and coached athletes to state records in the 1600 and 3200. He coached the first Tennessee girl to qualify for footlocker and assisted at oak ridge when we became the first tn team to qualify for nxn. He was part of the only coaching staff ever to coach both boys and girls state team champions in AAA, in 2007. He went on to coach national level sprinters, jumpers, and distance runners at TN Wesleyan. All of that says that he’s a really good running coach, and he is. He’s as good as anyone I’ve ever seen anywhere, particularly at teaching athletes how to compete. He’s also the best teacher of technique that I’ve ever known. He sees it and can communicate it really well. More importantly, though, he’s one of the best human beings I’ve ever known: honest, good-humored, humble when he needs to be, aware of his commitment to excellence. It’s really hard for a coach to put his family first, and I was not very good at doing that, but Tammy, Haden, Haley, and Copeland were always the center of his world even more so than his teams and athletes were. His priority was always his family and people over performance. And yet, he’s affected so many people in track and field and cross country and in his church over the last 34-years that any number of people could stand up here and talk about how he’s changed their lives. I happen to be the person who gets to do that. Sam is the greatest friend I’ve had during my lifetime and is one of the best ever to have coached. Congratulations.
by Coach Allen Etheridge
In about one minute I need to sum up several years’ worth of success. When I coached this extraordinary group of women I assumed that everyone else was like they were: committed, competitive, disciplined, well-rounded, talented, tight-knit, often brilliant. I assumed that every group would produce extraordinary leaders like we had, whose willingness to work and reach in search of a goal would inspire their teammates to work and reach with them. I assumed that every coaching staff put in the time, thought, and effort that ours did, that everyone knew as much about running, nutrition, teamwork as our staff did and that they were as committed to the goal as ours was. I thought that every group of parents and every Boosters club cared as much as ours did and functioned as flawlessly as ours did. That was not the case; this group was extraordinary in every way. Over the four-year period between 2007-2010, they won three AAA state championships and were runner-up another time by a mere 8 points. During that span they scored a total of 247 points at the AAA state meet, an average of 62 per year. They took home trophies from Great American, Jesse Owens, McCallie, and Maymont. Many of them went on to NCAA and NAIA running careers. They were really good. The young women who made up those teams have gone on to become lawyers, teachers, accountants, photographers, pilots, physical therapists, dentists, businesswomen. The seeds of their adult lives were there even then—it’s no surprise that they have grown up to persevere and to win in their adult lives. That’s who they always were, and it was revealed in their approach to cross country: they demanded excellence from themselves and were not satisfied with less. I keep thinking the same thing as I look around the room and see young athletes who in 15 years no doubt will be adults receiving this same honor: what you’re doing now matters, it’s important not only because of the great memories you’ll get to keep forever, but also because running on a cross country team both reveals and sharpens your best attributes, as it did for these women more than fifteen years ago. It’s why we do interscholastic athletics. I’m so fortunate to have been their coach, and I am so proud of them both then and now. Congratulations to
Dierdre Brockwell
Leah Chance
Adrian Etheridge
Autumn Gipson
Lauren Irby
Whitney Irby
Leslie Jenkins
Melanie Kulesz
Corinne Lariviere
Allison Miles
Katie Ostrouchov
Jessica Palmer
Natalie Stixrud
Becca Therrien
Allison Toth
Mariah Zawisza
by Coach Allen Etheridge
Carolina Areheart – Webb
Campbell Asti – West
Ana Berkheimer – Hardin Valley
Caitlin Daniels – Catholic
Calysta Garmer – Webb
Jazzlyn Garmer – Webb
Drew Gerken – Catholic
Dylan Job – Oak Ridge
Ava Moody – Anderson Co.
Livi Ray – Catholic
Emma Roberts – Maryville
Avery Jo Thomas – Heritage
Ariana Vargas – Webb
Alexandra Vesser – Hardin Valley
Gabe Allen – Hardin Valley
Tommy Babbit – Maryville
Evan Beeler – Farragut
Nicholas Burke – West
Tanner Coggin – Farragut
Cade Duncanson – Catholic
Mason Greenhalgh – Oak Ridge
Garrett Hawkins – Hardin Valley
Josh Hunt – Hardin Valley
Vance Laster – Anderson County
Radek Molchan – Catholic
Rowan Moser-Bryan – Karns
Tony Ortega – Catholic
Keegan Smith – Catholic
metro knoxville xc 