ROGERS — At the Class 7A State Cross Country Championship held in Rogers Saturday, the Bryant Lady Hornets took seventh place in the team standings with 180 points. The Rogers Lady Mounties won the state title with 42 points followed by runner-up Bentonville with 60 points. There were 11 full teams and 99 individual finishers.
Bryant was led by Hannah Raney who finished in 23rd place with a time of 20:56. Freshman Marley Adams was the Lady Hornets’ second finisher at 27th place with a time of 21:33. The rest of the scorers for Bryant were Stacy Emmerling (32nd, 21:40), Ashlyn Lessenberry (52nd, 22:48), and Kat Bolton (54th, 22:52).[more]
Bryant’s other finishers were Stacie Waite (67th, 23:34), Skylar Oswalt (68th, 23:35), Mikayla Douglas (75th, 23:57), and Lauren Rogers (85th, 24:37).
“Before this race we had talked a lot about getting out to a good position and then maintaining that through to the finish,” said Lady Hornets coach Danny Westbrook. “In a big competition, with several very good runners, sometimes it is difficult to gauge how hard you need to go out. I think we had a few of our top girls go out too hard and ‘red lined’ early. After that, they just couldn’t maintain any kind of decent pace toward the end of the race.
“All of our top five today are underclassman with two of them being freshman,” he noted. “We are a young team, so I am encouraged that this group can be extremely good in the future. We had a great season, having won four big invitational meets and the 7A Central Conference Championship.”
