COLUMBIA, S.C. — Former Lumberton resident Sam Rich won a cross country state championship last week in South Carolina.

Rich won the South Carolina High School League 4A state championship Thursday in Columbia, claiming the first state championship of any kind for Catawba Ridge, his second-year school located in Fort Mill, south of Charlotte.

Rich and his family lived in Lumberton from 2007-13 while his father, Matthew Rich, was pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Lumberton. The younger Rich began running at the Chevy to the Levee event in Lumberton when he was six years old, and has run ever since, his father said.

Rich, in his junior season for the Copperheads, ran the state championship race in 15 minutes, 8 seconds at the Sandhills Research Center, defeating the runner-up, Spain Vaughn from Greenville Eastside, by five seconds.

“It was good to feed off (Vaughn) and not waste energy,” Rich told fortmillprepsports.com. “My main goal was to get a fast time and win. The course is harder than I thought it would be. It is an honor to be the first state champion (for Catawba Ridge).”

Rich’s title helped Catawba Ridge to a fifth-place finish in the team competition.