Sports 25 October 2009

Lady 'Cats cross country advances to regionals

By
The Highland County Press-

     The Whiteoak girls cross country team is headed to the Division III Regional tournament after a fourth place finish at Rio Grande in the district meet Saturday.

     The Lady ‘Cats gained the fourth place finish, competing against 35 schools.

     Regionals will take place at Pickerington North High School next Saturday at 1:05 p.m.
     This is the best finish for the Lady ‘Cats team since at least ’01.

     Whiteoak senior Felicia Stevens finished 13th to qualify individually running a season best time of 22:27 on a very windy day. Stevens is the first Whiteoak cross country runner to advance individually to the regionals since ‘01.

     The surprise of the day came from the rest of the Lady 'Cats, as Leanna Lomske came in with her best time of the year 23:33 for a 28th place finish. Clarissa Johnson and Jennah Lomske finished in 38th and 41st place to give Whiteoak four runners in the top half of the race. Haley Bingamon improved her time from the previous trip to Rio Grande by over three minutes to round out the fourth place finish for the Lady Cats.
      “There were 103 total runners in the race, and 65 of the spots were used for team scoring (must have 5-7 runners for a team score), of the 65 spots. We had four girls in the Top 24, and that pushed us into contention for a possible fourth place finish. It looked like we were going to get fifth or sixth place, but I knew it was going to be close.”
      Final scoring for the Division III race was led by Fairland with 51 points, followed by Westfall with 84 points. Piketon was third with 129 points and Whiteoak edged out Ironton 136-141 to take the final qualifying spot.
      “Anytime you can make it to the regionals in any sport it's pretty special, but what made it even more special to the girls was that they had to qualify against every single Division III team in the southeast district in just one race, whereas the boys in Division II and III were split into two races giving them a total of eight teams advancing, compared to just four teams for the girls.”

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