By Terry Boehmker
NKyTribune sports reporter
Beechwood won its first Class 1A region championship in girls cross country in impressive fashion on Saturday with seven runners among the top nine finishers in the meet at Ryle High School.
Beechwood freshman Lily Parke won the race, completing the 5,000-meter course in 20 minutes, 29 seconds. The team’s next finisher was sophomore Charli Gerrein, who came in third. Neither of them was on last year’s team that placed third in the region.
The next five finishers for Beechwood followed each other across finish line, placing fifth through ninth. They were sophomores Isabel Ginter, Lana Holt and Annie Harris, junior Catie Hazzard and freshman Nora Wilke.
The Tigers posted a team score of 22 points based on the places of its top five finishers. Brossart took second place with 60 points and St. Henry was third with 66.
St. Henry won the Class 1A boys region title by a 29-49 margin over Villa Madonna. The winning runner for the third consecutive year was St. Henry senior Dixon Ryan in 16:37.
In the Class 3A region meets at Ryle, Conner took the boys team title for the fifth consecutive year and Campbell County finished on top in the girls standings.
Ryle junior Tiger Bartlett won the boys race in 15:53, five seconds ahead of Covington Catholic sophomore Will Sheets. Four of the next seven finishers were Conner runners and their team bested CovCath, 37-52, for the team title.
Campbell County sophomore Olivia Holbrook won the girls race in 19:27. Her team’s winning total was 37 points and Ryle placed second with 50.
In the Class 2A region meet at Masterson Station in Lexington, Highlands won the Class 2A boys team title for the second straight year and Scott junior Maddie Strong won the girls race in 18:43 to lead her team to a third-place trophy.
The state cross country meet will be Friday and Saturday at the Bourbon County course in Paris. The Class 2A races on Friday will begin at 4 p.m. for boys and 5 p.m. for girls. The starting times on Saturday will be 10 a.m. for Class 1A boys, 11 a.m. for Class 1A girls, 3 p.m. for Class 3A boys and 4 p.m. for Class 3A girls.