For only the second time in TSSAA history, a boys' cross country team has won five consecutive state championships.
McCallie accomplished the remarkable feat to win the Division II-AA title Friday morning at Hendersonville's Sanders Ferry Park, where the Blue Tornado's top five runners had an average time of 15 minutes and 46 seconds on the 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) course and scored 58 points.
Nashville's Montgomery Bell Academy, the runner-up with 66 points, had an average finish time of 15:57 for its five runners who scored.
McCallie's fifth straight title, which tied the record set by Brentwood Academy from 2014-18, was the program's 10th overall. The first came in 2001, with back-to-back championships won in 2005-06 and 2012-13.
"What's interesting about our run to five straight state titles is the year we started the streak, we had a bunch of seniors on the team," McCallie coach Mike Wood said. "That group had been the state runner-up the two years prior, so when they won it all, we felt like the hard work finally paid off. The next year we had all these freshman and didn't really know what we were going to have.
"Then we won with all those freshman, and you start to think, 'Wow, we have three more years with these guys. I wonder if we can keep doing it?' And so they did. When you sit down and look back at what they have done, it is very impressive."
Of the seven McCallie runners who entered Friday's race, four were seniors: Harry Carter, Garrison Corley, Grady Outlaw and Evan Simpson. Outlaw and Simpson earned all-state status in each of their four varsity seasons.
Jack Bowen, a junior, added to the momentous meet for McCallie. A day after Ravenwood's Miles Ramer set a course record at 15:00 to win the Class AAA race, Bowen and Knoxville Webb senior Colin Eckerman rewrote the history books.
Eckerman raced to the DII-AA individual title in a course-record-breaking 14:51.54, while Bowen set a McCallie mark at 14:52.52 and was state runner-up for the second consecutive season.
"To be able to run a sub-15-minute race at the state meet when it matters the most is such a special feeling for me," Bowen said. "I am so happy I was able to contribute to my team. We have a great group here and so much support from our coaches and families. We were the deepest team in all of Tennessee."
Although unable to join Dylan Carmack, whose 2014 victory remains the lone individual state title in McCallie cross country history, Bowen is accomplished in his own right with a final prep season still to go next year.
"Jamie Gifford was a kid who ran at Baylor back in the day and was probably the best cross country runner to come out of Chattanooga," Wood said of the two-time individual state champion who repeated at the 1996 Class AAA meet with a time of 14:41 at Nashville's Percy Warner Park. "I think Jack has the chance to get to the level that Jamie was at. What Jack is doing right now is very rare."
McCallie's top seven runners all finished in the top third of the 108-runner field, with Bowen joined by Simpson (15:41, eighth), Outlaw (15:59, 13th); junior Henry Edwards (16:06, 17th), sophomore Ian Jacobs (16:16, 18th), Corley (16:20, 23rd) and Carter (16:45, 34th).
Chattanooga Christian School was seventh and Baylor ninth in the 13-team field. CCS was led by junior Zachary Younglood (16:18, 22nd) and classmate Benjamin Allison (16:48, 35th), while the Red Raiders were paced by sophomore Marshal McConville (16:54, 36th).
In the DII-AA girls' race, Knox Webb won with 41 points and Harpeth Hall was second with 61, with the top five rounded out a by a trio of Chattanooga teams: CCS (121), Baylor (121) and GPS (126). GPS junior Gilly Shumate (18:15, fifth), Baylor senior Mae Mae Powe (18:41, ninth) and junior Addi Greene (19:12.66, 11th), and CCS eighth grader Taylor Stanford (19:32, 15th) earned all-state status.
Two days of state meet competition wrapped up with the Class A/AA races in the afternoon.
Signal Mountain's boys and girls swept team state titles for the fourth time in five years, and both of coach Dustin Carpenter's programs set school records for average finish time with the girls at 19:40.88 and the boys at 16:33.97.
The state title was the ninth for the girls and fourth for the boys, with both program repeating as champs this year.
"Our program is completely athlete driven," Carpenter wrote in a text message to the Times Free Press. "The younger athletes see the dedication and success of their older teammates and buy into the process of what it takes to be successful. Each group want to surpass what the previous group achieved."
Sophomore Maxine Richards (18:53, fourth) and juniors Aubrey Lynch (19:28, ninth) and Hannah Laramore (19:33, 12th) had all-state finishes for the Lady Eagles, whose 62 points were 40 fewer than runner-up Station Camp.
Soddy Daisy freshman Tatum Croft (19:34, 14th) also earned all-state status in the A/AA girls' race.
Signal Mountain's DiAngelo Cisco was the A/AA boys' runner-up at 16:04, while fellow senior Josh Pote (16:23, seventh) and junior Tynan Borders (16:24, eighth) joined him in all-state recognition. The Eagles scored 55 points, while Central Magnet was a distant second with 129.
Contact Patrick MacCoon at pmaccoon@timesfreepress.com.