Participating in their first state level sporting event did not faze Booneville freshmen yesterday.
The top Lady Bearcat finisher in the Class 3A state cross country meet was freshman Emily Thornburg.
The top two finishers in the boys division were freshmen Jayden Walker and Leo Vasquez.
Thornburg cleared the course at Oaklawn in Hot Springs in 28:02.58, an impressive 2:24 faster than she ran in the district meet last week, which came after having run the 1.5-mile junior girls meet.
Walker (shown edging another runner in a final sprint) finished the 5K run in 21:24.54 with Vasquez crossing the finish line in 22:14.28.
For Walker it was over a minute faster than his first varsity run in last week’s District 3A-4 meet. Vasquez’s time was 48 seconds better than his district time. Both had also run the 1.5-mile district meet.
There were the required five Lady Bearcats on the course – among the 137 – needed for a team score with their combined finishes netting a 14th place.
Jessah Posey and Kaylee King finished consecutively at 30:29.40 and 30:31.10. Cora Nichols and Daniela Vasquez completed the team score.
The maximum nine Bearcats completed the run, which featured 197 total runners and 24 complete teams.
Completing the 17th place team score were Taylor Shaver with a time of 22:27.87, Nathan Hicks at 23:00.43, and Cooper Lentz at 24:29.83, with Lentz a full minute faster than he ran the district course.
Rounding out the Bearcat runners were Ayden Hill and Nate Fowler, Jeremiah Posey, and Barret Coker, who was able to better his personal best from the district race by 18 seconds. Hill was also 14 seconds faster than last week at 25:53.87.
FRESHMEN LEAD BEARCATS/LADY BEARCATS IN STATE CROSS COUNTRY MEET
