ONA - Senior Alex Dent has accomplished a lot of feats during her four-year stay at Hurricane High School. Until Saturday, though, she had never won an individual state cross country championship.
ONA - Senior Alex Dent has accomplished a lot of feats during her four-year stay at Hurricane High School. Until Saturday, though, she had never won an individual state cross country championship.
"It's the way a senior is supposed to go out, isn't it?" Dent said following her 26-second Class AAA girls win at the state meet at Cabell Midland High School. "I knew that I needed to go out hard and put the pressure on the other girls, and that's what I did."
The Hurricane standout shot to the front of the pack of 93 runners at the start of the 3.1-mile race and finished first in 19 minutes, 16 seconds. Runner-up Chelsea Clark of Fairmont Senior and two-time defending individual champion Letitia Propst from Elkins both were clocked at 19:42.
"When I got up this morning and saw the weather forecast, I knew that I could do this," Dent said. "We've run so much in this kind of weather this season that I really didn't let it bother me."
Dent's efforts were not enough to carry her Redskins teammates as Jefferson took home its first AAA state cross country title, winning 73-80 over runner-up University. Hurricane finished third in the team standings with 98 points.
Joining Dent, Clark and Propst on the all-state team (top 10 finishers) were Cabell Midland's Jordan Thornton (fourth, 19:46), University's Lydia Martinelli (fifth, 19:48), Jefferson's Andrea Nickerson (sixth, 19:54), Bridgeport's Erika Voreh (seventh, 19:59), Jefferson's Alyssa Boucher (eighth, 20:03) and Lindsay Hash (ninth, 20:03) and Hampshire's Carissa Guyer (10th, 20:07).
"[The championship] means everything," Nickerson said. "We really pulled through as a team today and it showed with three of us finishing in the top 10."
In the AAA boys race, host Cabell Midland got back to the victory stand for the first time since 2004.ONA - Senior Alex Dent has accomplished a lot of feats during her four-year stay at Hurricane High School. Until Saturday, though, she had never won an individual state cross country championship.
"It's the way a senior is supposed to go out, isn't it?" Dent said following her 26-second Class AAA girls win at the state meet at Cabell Midland High School. "I knew that I needed to go out hard and put the pressure on the other girls, and that's what I did."
The Hurricane standout shot to the front of the pack of 93 runners at the start of the 3.1-mile race and finished first in 19 minutes, 16 seconds. Runner-up Chelsea Clark of Fairmont Senior and two-time defending individual champion Letitia Propst from Elkins both were clocked at 19:42.
"When I got up this morning and saw the weather forecast, I knew that I could do this," Dent said. "We've run so much in this kind of weather this season that I really didn't let it bother me."
Dent's efforts were not enough to carry her Redskins teammates as Jefferson took home its first AAA state cross country title, winning 73-80 over runner-up University. Hurricane finished third in the team standings with 98 points.
Joining Dent, Clark and Propst on the all-state team (top 10 finishers) were Cabell Midland's Jordan Thornton (fourth, 19:46), University's Lydia Martinelli (fifth, 19:48), Jefferson's Andrea Nickerson (sixth, 19:54), Bridgeport's Erika Voreh (seventh, 19:59), Jefferson's Alyssa Boucher (eighth, 20:03) and Lindsay Hash (ninth, 20:03) and Hampshire's Carissa Guyer (10th, 20:07).
"[The championship] means everything," Nickerson said. "We really pulled through as a team today and it showed with three of us finishing in the top 10."
In the AAA boys race, host Cabell Midland got back to the victory stand for the first time since 2004.
Led by all-state runners Jacob Burcham (sixth, 17:10) and Tyler Salmons (seventh, 17:11), the Knights ran away from the 12-team field, winning by 45 points (37-82) over runner-up Jefferson.
Jefferson junior Brandon Doughty won his first individual state title, overtaking No. 1-ranked Cody Pelliccioni from Wheeling Park over the final 400 meters and beating him by 19 seconds with a winning time of 16:32.
Rounding out the top 10 were Fairmont Senior's Dayton McVicker (third, 16:56) and Patrick Stanton (eighth, 17:20), Morgantown's Lucas Greza (fourth, 17:00), Wheeling Park's Logan Wojcik (fifth, 17:08), St. Albans' Andy Bailey (ninth, 17:24) and Musselman's Austin Rigsby (10th, 17:25).
Winfield placed fifth in the team standings with 128 points.
Capturing team titles in the Class AA-A division were the girls from St. Marys and the boys from Grafton, and each school also had the individual champion - St. Marys' Maggie Drazba (20:08) and Grafton's Drew Woodford (17:09).
Ravenswood's Matt Knowlton and Charleston Catholic's Sami Harris earned all-state honors by virtue of their top-10 finishes. Knowlton, a junior, placed fourth in a time of 17:45 while Harris, just a freshman, finished fifth in 21:13.
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