HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The champs keep champing.
One of the main contributors to Christ School’s NCISAA Division I state championship raced for the first time since his graduation on Saturday. Luke Parrish ’24 did not let competition from all over the country or the Alabama heat phase him in winning the 2,000-meter steeplechase at the RunningLane Track Championships.
Luke smiled as he broke the tape with one arm raised to the sky in a personal record time of 6 minutes, 13.38 seconds.
Luke bided his time before taking the lead with about 800 meters to go. He had no trouble with any of the barriers, including the water jumps that swallowed up some of the other runners.
“I feel like I put forth my best effort today,” Luke said in an interview Saturday. “I really wanted to come out here and grind, and run hard, and I did just that.”
Luke’s full interview can be watched without a subscription on the North Carolina Milesplit site.
The steeplechase is not a sanctioned event in North Carolina high school track and rarely run at instate meets. Luke had never tried it until last year. There were runners from 12 different states in his race Saturday – Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah.
Luke is from Waynesville, N.C., and has signed to run college cross country and track for Charlotte. He was a three-time state champion in his career at Christ School, counting track this spring and the 2021 and 2022 cross country seasons by the Greenies.
The Reeves brothers, Dawson ’24 and Dallas ’27, did well in Alabama, too. Dawson placed eighth in the boys championship mile (4:09.11) and Dallas ran a stellar time (9:39.55) in his heat of the 3,200.