Regional Cross Country: Shady Spring girls and PikeView boys … – Lootpress

Last year the Shady Spring girls and the PikeView boys broke long regional championship title droughts.

Evidently the Tigers and the Panthers enjoy the view from the top.

Coming into the 2023 Region 3 cross country championship as the favorites to repeat, both teams were up to the challenge.

The Shady Spring girls placed all five scoring runners in the top-10 to beat second place Herbert Hoover by 39 points.

I was really proud of my girls. They exceeded my expectations today, Shady Spring head coach Eric Lawson said. I am happy as can be with them. They work so hard and they deserve to reap the benefits of it.

The Panthers on the other hand had to fend off a strong challenge from the Shady Spring boys squad, slipping past the Tigers by seven points to earn their back-to-back crown.

Starting the year I said our boys team was super-duper young, but they were hungry. They made PikeView sweat today and that is what I wanted, Lawson said. We knew PikeView was the favorite and they are such a good team. We wanted to go down fighting and that is what we did.

Just like the Coalfield Conference meet a week ago, Bre Crouse and Gwynn McGinnis led the charge for the Lady Tigers placing second and third, respectively.

I knew once Bre Crouse got going she was going to be hard to stop, Lawson said. She ran 24 minutes at (the) PikeView (Invitational) and two weeks later she was running 21 (minutes). She ran 21 again today. She is an animal. I would go to war with that girl any day. She is awesome.

Junior Journey Wisthoff, who has been a solid rock all year for Lawsons bunch, came home sixth followed by freshman Audrey Justice in seventh place. Junior Abby Honaker rounded out the scoring for Shady Spring in tenth place.

This group is tight. They hype each other up and they have each others backs, Lawson said. They run for each other on both the boys and girls side. It is not an individual thing. They are all happy to have team success. Of course, individual success breeds team success, but they are more worried about how are we doing, not how am I doing.

Herbert Hoover finished second in the girls team competition to punch its ticket along with Shady Spring to the state meet Oct. 28 at Cabell Midland High School.

The Huskies scoring came from five underclassmen including regional champion Jenna Brown.

Crouse battled Brown to the end with the Hoover sophomore holding on for the victory by five seconds.

I knew it was going to be a hard race coming in, so I just stayed focused and tried my best. Brown said. It put everything in me to finish. I could hear them behind me, so I was a little nervous. I was struggling on all of the hills. I also had a soccer game last night, so I was pretty tired from that. It was a little rough.

After a fourth-place finish last year in the regional run, Brown admitted she didnt think she would win the race, she was pushing herself for another reason.

I really wanted our team to qualify (for states), so I was really just running for our team, Brown said.

Freshman Bella Haas was 11th and sophomore Reese Holbert was 12th for the Huskies, while freshman Eden Niewierowski was 21st and sophomore Carli Monk was 25th.

The top-10 finishers that were not on the two qualifying teams also earned a spot at the state meet.

Carli Spade from PikeView was fourth, while Kyndal Lusk from Wyoming East was fifth. Nicholas County teammates Adrienne Truman and Haley Johnson finished eighth and ninth, respectively.

Lusk, who moved over from Westside to Wyoming East to play basketball, saved her best run for just the right time.

This feels really good. I beat a couple of girls today that I havent beat before. I felt pretty good the whole way and I love this feeling, Lusk said, smiling. My goal was to stay with Journey (Wisthoff) and try to get by runners one by one. I hadnt beat her all season.

The Panthers had a couple of holes to fill from graduation last year and the PikeView running factory sent up freshman Tyler Huffman who has been dominate all year.

Huffman finished second Thursday followed by junior teammates Matt Murphy in fifth place and Nate Cook in 10th. Sophomores Jonah Nolan (12th) and Elijah Keaton (16th) added to the Panthers strong effort on the day.

Our boys team has worked really hard. We are very excited that all of their hard work paid off today, PikeView head coach Sandra Webb said.

Murphy, Cook and Nolan were also a key components on last years team, but Huffman has been a difference maker.

This feels pretty good. We came in a little more prepared this year, Murphy said. We lost Braden Ward who is running at Concord and Kaleb Blankenship who was a good runner. Tyler is just a phenomenal freshman and he has been holding us together right now.

Three teams on the boys side qualified for the state tournament, including second place Shady Spring and Nicholas County in third.

Freshman Logan Malott was the first Tiger across the line in sixth place followed by junior Eli Jordan in eighth place. Junior David Hegele raced home in 11th place, while sophomore David Northrop was 13th and junior Vaughn York was 15th.

Nicholas County was powered by a pair of juniors in regional champion Johnny Walkup and Luke Barr in third place.

Junior Isaiah Miner was 26th for the Grizzlies with senior Sam Feinstein crossing 29th and sophomore Maverick Smith was 31st.

Walkup was also the Coalfield Conference champion last week, edging Barr for the title.

This is my first regional win and it feels good. I have won a couple of meets, but this regional meet definitely is the best to be at the top spot, Walkup said. The course was tough. Tyler Huffman from PikeView was really pushing the pace and making us work harder. The course had a lot of deceiving hills. I felt confident coming through at the two, two-and-a-half mile mark. I had faith in myself and I tried to have a strong finish.

With three teams qualifying on the boys side, individual spots were hard to come by Thursday, but three runners worked themselves into that top-10 group.

Sawyer Dobbins from Clay County was fourth, while Hank Marson from Bluefield was seventh and Jadon Acord from Liberty was ninth overall.

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Regional Cross Country: Shady Spring girls and PikeView boys ... - Lootpress