The Shawnee girls team won the title for the third straight season, scoring 28 points. The Braves edged host Northwestern by two points.
“I’m so proud,” said Braves coach Brian DeSantis. “We knew it was going to be a great battle (for both teams). We just wanted to keep them close and give ourselves a chance to win.”
Boys
Tecumseh’s Preston Jackson won the boys race with a time of 17 minutes, 36 seconds. The senior grew up playing basketball and didn’t start running cross country until last season. He finished third at last year’s county meet and set a goal to win the championship this fall.
“I’ve been putting up the miles and doing the right workouts at the right times,” Jackson said. “Having a team that’s pretty solid helps. They’re always doing early morning runs with me.”
Shawnee senior Jordyn Dillavou placed second in a time of 17:47. He was followed by freshman Greg Lange (4th, 18:25), senior Silas Bush (5th, 18:26), junior Lansen McCoy (12th, 19:14) and sophomore Jonah Kiess (14th, 19:37).
“We had one word we were focusing on all week in practice and that was compete,” DeSantis said. “We’ve just not been competing or doing the right things to compete — having eyes on somebody or doing all the right preparation for the races. I can never say they don’t compete after what they did today because every person on the team competed really, really well today.”
Credit: Name Test
Credit: Name Test
Tecumseh’s Jackson was joined in the top10 by his brothers — junior Perry Jackson (8th, 18:48) and sophomore Parker Jackson (9th, 19:03). Arrows senior Matthew Gerargi was 13th in 19:32, while senior Andrew McPeek was 17th in 19:56.
Greenon junior Ian Spence was third in 18:14 and was joined in the top12 by sophomore Merrick Peterson (10th, 19:10) and junior Cooper Johnson (11th, 19:12).
Emmanuel Christian senior Jacob Kittles was sixth (18:30) and Kenton Ridge senior Zayden Taylor was seventh (18:31).
Girls
Shawnee senior Audrey DeSantis won the county championship for the third time in four seasons in 19:54. She beat the rest of the field by more than a minute.
“It’s pretty cool because everyone here always cheers for everyone,” she said. “It was a lot of fun. I’m really proud of my team today.”
The Braves senior was even happier to bring home the team title. As she watched the runners cross the finish line, she knew it was going to be close.
“It’s hard to know when they’re all coming in if we won or not,” Audrey DeSantis said. “I kind of thought that we didn’t. When we were told we won, it was really cool. We’ve been talking about this for a while. It was really close.”
Shawnee senior Abigail Klemmensen finished fourth in 22:13. She was followed by freshman Gracie Short (5th, 22:15), senior Tessa Holcomb (22:24) and junior Impreza Rogers (11th, 23:26).
Northwestern had five of the top-10 runners, including runner-up senior Madison Little (21:02) and third-place sophomore Alyssa Christian (22:00). Senior Madison Lyday was sixth in 22:19, while senior Natalie Boehmer was ninth in 23:19 and junior Kayley Yontz was 10th in 23:22.
Kenton Ridge freshman Sarah Watkins finished eighth in 22:52.
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