Lady Chargers win region, boys headed to state meet

The Boerne Champion varsity cross country teams went 1-2 in their respective races at Tuesday’s Region IV-5A meet in Corpus Christi to both qualify for this year’s 5A state meet.

The Lady Chargers won the 5A race and the Champion boys team placed second on Tuesday.

The next stop for both the Charger varsity teams is Round Rock for the 5A state meet at Old Settler’s Park on Saturday, Nov. 5.

“It was a great day for both teams,” head coach Jonathan Tate said.

The 5A girls’ state race is set for 10 a.m. on Saturday morning and the boys race follows at 10:40 a.m.

Varsity Girls

All four of the state qualifying teams were from the greater San Antonio area after the Lady Chargers were first with 75 points to beat Smithson Valley (80), followed by New Braunfels Canyon (148) and Alamo Heights (157) in the field of 24 teams.

Elizabeth Leachman paced the Lady Chargers and was fifth with a time of 19:15.65, Josey Whitaker came in eighth with a time of 19:23.16, Grace Flores finished 14th after recording a 19:37.37, Kendall Fallon clocked in at 19:38.72 for 16th and Kynley Albright posted a time of 20:26.18 for 32nd to round out the scoring five, while Erin Shrader came in 55th in 21:05.68 and Kamryn Neer completed the race in a time of 21:26.30 for 63rd.

Varsity Boys

Champion ran well as a pack and tallied 150 points to finish second at Tuesday’s race behind the first-place Mission Sharyland team that scored 126 points.

Alamo Heights also qualified for state after the Mules were third (189) and McAllen Memorial placed fourth (195) to snag the last spot up for grabs.

McAllen Memorial tied Laredo Nixon with 195 points but Memorial won the tiebreaker, which is the sixth-place runner after Memorial’s sixth runner was 117th and Nixon’s was 127th. NB Canyon was one spot and one point behind Memorial and Nixon with 196 points.

For the Chargers, Luis Tovar and Charlie Houck were 21st and 23rd after Tovar turned in a 16:47.51 and Houck clocked in at 16:58.31. Caleb Dehart placed 30th in 17:09.87 and Ben Matamoros was two spots back in 32nd after posting a 17:12.15, while Matthew Duran came in 44th with a 17:22.11, Noah Perez finished in 17:54.13 for 75th and Patrick Thornton rounded out the team with a time of 17:58.69 for 79th.