TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Junior runner Claire Shelton and senior runner Taylor Wade finished inside the top-25 and earned spots on the all-south region team at the NCAA South Regional Championships on Friday morning.
Shelton led the squad for the opening race and paced out to a strong start. She ran in the top-25 throughout the entirety of the race with senior Lottie Chappell climbing the leaderboard into the top-50 of the 6k. Shelton picked off one racer at a time after the 3k mark and crossed the line as an All-Regional honoree.
She crossed the line at 20:21.4 to claim 22nd place overall, her best time of the season and just one second off her 6k personal best. Shelton became the first Tech runner to earn All-Regionals since Kate Jortberg’s 13th-place in 2024, the only two female runners to accomplish the feat in the last four years.
Chappell secured back-to-back top-50 finishes at regionals, crossing the line at 20:50.2 and claiming 41st overall, an eight-place improvement from 2025. Stella Chambless was next in 72nd place with Sadie Honig placing 101st overall. Senior Ava Coffey rounded out the scoring five in 125th. The team finished 11th overall with 359 points.
In the 10k, Taylor Wade whistled away towards the front of the pack before settling in around 50th. He made his way into the mid-40s before picking off 22 places between the 5k and 6k mark. Ascending into the top-25 before pacing back into 30th place. He found his rhythm once more and crossed the line as an All-Regional runner.
Wade finished 23rd overall at 30:17.3, roughly 45 seconds ahead of his personal best time in the 10k. He became the first All-Regional runner for the Jackets since his brother, Devin Wade, finished 21st in 2024. The Wade brothers are the only Tech finishers inside the top-25 for the men in the last four years.
Matt Castronuovo grew into the race and climbed up 23 spots between the 5k and 6k splits to push into the top-50. He completed the race at 31:08.4, securing his second consecutive top-50 finish at regionals with 47th place. Sophomore Wyatt Windham finished as the third-fastest Yellow Jacket for the first time in his career, finishing 65th place.
Fifth-year runner Joey Sandel was able to secure 74th place, finishing inside the top-100 of all four regional championships in his cross country career. John Jessup rounded out the Tech five in 87th place with a personal best time of 32:15.1. Billy Carlton placed 100th and set his new PB at 32:39.6. The men placed 10th overall with 278 points.
Georgia Tech concludes the 2026 cross country season with two all-regional honorees, three individual race wins, and a team victory for both men’s and women’s squads. The new indoor track and field season awaits next month, stay tuned for the unveiling of the team’s 2026-27 track and field schedule.
Full Steam Ahead
Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online.
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