The Star’s four area high schools will all be sending athletes to the State Cross Country Championships next week after earning spots in district competition on Thursday.
At Papillion’s Walnut Creek Park, the South Sioux City boys finished third in the A-1 district and will run in the Class A boys meet next Friday at the Kearney Country Club.
Luke McGinty and Melchisedek Munzambi both finished among the top 15 individual qualifiers, finishing eighth and ninth, respectively, to lead the Cardinals. Their team score of 102 was three ahead of Elkhorn South in the race for the final spot. Class A favorite Fremont (25) and Omaha Westside (54) finished ahead of SSC.
Joining the state-qualifying Cardinals are Melusi Ngeleka, Nabiil, Yussuf, Leandro Magana, Nathan Robles and Yahir Mejia-Covarrubias.
The South Sioux City girls did not get into the top three in their district, finishing sixth with 182 points. Millard West (21), Papillion-LaVista South (58) and Elkhorn South (73) were the three qualifying teams.
In District D-2 action at Twin Creeks Golf Course south of Pender, Ponca swept the individual titles and all three area schools put entires into the state meet.
Ponca’s Gannon Pfister and Ava Brennan both won individual titles in the 5,000-meter race. Pfister had a four-second advantage on Andrew Kastl of Norfolk Catholic to take the boys title, while Brennan cruised to a 32-second pace over Cecilia Wortmann of Crofton in the girls race.
Comparing other district finishes, Brennan is third in Class D and Pfister is 10th.
Homer won a tight three-team race to claim the boys district title. The Knights finished with 19 points, followed by Norfolk Catholic (22) and Ponca (25).
Area athletes who qualified individually in the boys race included Pfister, Aayden Harris of Homer (4th), Ponca’s Broderick Hogan (6th), Homer runners Caden Barclay (7th) and Jessup Snowball (8th) and Jude Ridenour of Tri County Northeast (12th).
In the girls race, the Homer girls edged Ponca by three points, 32-35, for the final spot among the three qualifying teams. Host Pender won the title with 14 points, while Crofton was the runner-up with 19 points.
Following Brennan among individual area qualifiers were Lillly Harris of Homer (4th), Jaedyn Bousquet of Homer (13th) and Alejandra Hermosillo of Tri County Northeast (15th).
The State Cross Country Championships will take place Friday, Oct. 25 at the Kearney Country Club. South Sioux City will run in the Class A boys race at 12:30 p.m., while the Class D races will run at 2:30 (boys) and 3:30 (girls) p.m.
Look for complete results in next week's edition of the Dakota County Star.
