From the trails and track in Arden to footing on a national stage, Christ School cross country has covered some ground recently.
The statistics are unbiased and well-documented by now. The best individual runner in state history (Rocky Hansen ’23) comes from the same high school as North Carolina’s all-time fastest team (the 2025 Greenies).
It can’t be a coincidence. The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association agrees.
The USTFCCCA has named Christ School’s Randy Ashley as its 2025 N.C. Boys Cross Country Coach of the Year.
Cross country has existed as a sport at Christ School for 62 seasons now, 10 of them under Coach Ashley. It’s been a golden era.
North Carolina had never seen a boys runner do the things that Rocky did. The 10-time state champion remains the only N.C. high school runner to ever break 4 minutes in the mile and holds all-time state records from 1,600 meters to 5,000 meters.
Team-wise, the 2025 Greenies won their third NCISAA 4-A state championship since 2021 and established new precedents for time and wins. The Greenies ultimately placed seventh at the December 6 Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) meet in Portland after taking first at the Nike Cross Regionals Southeast meet as well as invitationals in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
All five of their scoring runners broke 16 minutes for 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) in their biggest wins. Junior Brooks Barbee ’27 became only the second Christ School runner to break minutes (14:59.37) at the 4-A state meet on October 24 in Charlotte. He was named the Asheville Citizen-Times All-Western North Carolina Runner of the Year. Four others joined Brooks on the all-state team – Dallas Reeves ’27 (seventh place, 15:17.03), Reynolds Young ’27 (eighth, 15:27.38), Noah Clancy ’26 (ninth, 15:30.94), and Jack Dennehy ’27 (10th, 15:35.91).
Outside of running, the team’s cumulative grade-point average was above 4.0.