By Kevin Price The Brunswick High and Glynn Academy cross country teams will take part in a traditional competition on Saturday morning. The local squads will run in the annual Jekyll Island Invitational on the Great Dunes Golf Course on Jekyll Island. The 5-kilometer races over the unique terrain presented by the old nine-hole links course near the Atlantic Ocean always attracts a large field which includes several teams from metro Atlanta who like to come here for the Labor Day weekend, too. “This year's Jekyll Invitational will be featuring 45 teams from Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida,” said BHS coach Tom Bartolotta. The boys race starts at 7:15 a.m. Saturday with the girls meet scheduled for an 8 a.m. start time. There will be middle-school races for boys and girls at 9 and 9:30 a.m. as well. For the Pirates, their lineup includes six juniors. Those are Daniel Zamudio, Zachry Reed, Madden Petravoy, Ryan Thomas, Thomas Clay and Caden Stevenot. Zamudio placed sixth for the Pirates in this season’s opening meet at Wayne County in a time of 17 minutes, 55 seconds. The BHS boys finished third in the Region 2-AAAAAA meet last fall. “These boys are experienced and were key starters last year,” Bartolotta said. The BHS girls team is led by returning state qualifier Emma Kirkland who finished 10th in the opening meet in Jesup. She could be a contender for the region championship this fall, according to the BHS coach. Sydney Haywood is also another strong runner for the Lady Pirates. She finished 10th at region last fall, and the sophomore will be looking to medal at region this year along with Kirkland. The GA teams opened the season last Friday at the Cecil Field Summer Classic in Jacksonville. The Glynn boys finished second out of 32 teams while the GA girls were fourth out of 27 teams. The Red Terrors were led by Jack Roberts who finished in 18:04. Also for Glynn, Cameron Gazeway ran in 18:07, Griffin Lee in 18:41, Maxwell Wakeland in 18:49, Cole Albright in 19:02, Noah Abaraca at 19:18 and Ashton Reinholtz in 19:54. For the Lady Terrors, Wyleigh Foulk led the way in 21:55, Lexi Alberson finished in 22:37, Maura Thomas in 22:329, Carolina Wessell in 23:47, Lacey Reed in 23:51, Bella Albright in 24:12 and Penny Paris in 24:18. On Wednesday, both Glynn teams competed in the Wetlands Adventure Relay hosted by Richmond Hill. In this competition, teams were split into groups of four or five runners and they took turns running 800 meters for two hours. The teams that completed the most laps were declared the winners. The Terrors finished first in the boys event which featured 29 teams. Glynn completed 47 total laps. The Lady Terrors took third out of 19 teams in the girls competition. The first-place GA boys team included Jack Roberts, Griffin Lee, Cameron Gazaway and Max Wakeland. The third-place Glynn girls squad included Lexi Alberson, Maura Thomas, Carolina Wessel and Wyleigh Foulk. “We are anticipating an exciting season with some really fast times and great finishes,” said GA coach Chris Gunter. “Our top seven girls have already ran sub-24 on their 5-k test and our top eight boys have already ran sub-20. They will continue to grow and progress throughout the season due to their diligence and work-ethic. We will be implementing new ideas into our training regimen that will focus on attacking hills when running at state this year.” Gunter added that the Glynn teams are looking forward to the Jekyll races on Saturday. “The Jekyll Island Invitational will be one of our biggest meets that we participate in,” he noted. “Some big schools will be present. Including Glynn Academy, four teams will be running against each other from our region. We will get some great data from this event and use the results to build our training for the rest of the season. Expect to see Glynn Academy at the top of the list when the results are shared.”