The Boys and Girls Cross Country teams traveled to Huntsville this past weekend to compete in the Regional Cross Country meet held at Kate Ross Barr Park. The Class 3A Division races were the last races of the day with temperatures in the upper 80's. In the girls race, there were 171 runners with 23 teams competing for a chance to qualify for the State meet. The top 4 teams qualify to compete in RoundRock on Nov. 12, 2016. East Bernard finished as the top team to earn the title of Regional Champions for the 4th year in a row and advanced to the State Meet for the 9th year in a row. East Bernard finished with 54 points, followed by Franklin with 84 points, Brazos 3rd with 158 points, and Rogers 4th with 204 points to all qualify to compete in the statee meet. All 7 runners from East Bernard finished in the top 30 with the girls finishing within 1:20 of each other. The first East Bernard runner to cross the finish line was Jillian Hlavinka who finished in 3rd place with a time of 12:29, followed by Liz Guerra in 5th with a time of 12:34 to both earn All region honors as well as individual medalist honors. They were followed by AJ Navarro in 17th with a time of 13:04, Brooke Petrenella in 21st with a time of 13:24, Caitlyn Fuechec 23rd with a time of 13:30, Gracelyn Martinez 29th with a time of 13:47, and Kensi Muzik 30th with a time of 13:50. In the boys race, Kyle Doty from Bruceville Eddy ran the fastest time of the day in all classifications with a time of 15:54 under hot temperatures. In team competition, Pollack central placed first overall with 46 points followed by McGregor in 2nd with 102 points. East Bernard earned the Bronze medalist spot by 4 points coming in ahead of Little River Academy. East Bernard finished with 150 points with Little River Academy finishing with 154 points. Individually, East Bernard did not have finishers in the top 20, but all 7 runners finished within 1:15 of each other in a pretty tight pack. Reagan Whitley was the first East Bernard runner to cross the finish line in 26th with a time of 19:02, followed by Bo Badger in 32nd with a time of 19:17, Blaine Whitley in 35th with a time of 19:23, JJ Talas in 45th with a time of 19:58, Isaac Ortiz 52nd with a time of 20:06, David Martinez 61st with a time of 20:14, and Jacob Wondrash 64th with a time of 20:17. There were 177 runners competing in the boys race with 24 teams vying for a state qualifying spot. ALL the boys and girls competed hard and represented East Bernard well. Both teams will be running in Round Rock on Saturday Nov.12. The girls race will start at 2:40 with the boys race following at 3:10. Congratulations to all the runners on a successful weekend!
