ROGERS — The Bryant Hornets earned a ninth place finish in the Class 7A State Cross Country Championships for the second year in a row Saturday in Rogers.
Luke Lindsley earned his second All-State honor with a seventh-place finish in a time of 16:40.
Bentonville won the state championship with a total of 45 points, with 7A Central champion Cabot second with a total of 77. The rest of the top 10 schools were Har-Ber (139), Fayetteville (154), Heritage (155), Springdale (158), LR Catholic (171), Rogers (181), Bryant (208), and Conway (273).[more]
After Lindsley, the rest of the Hornets competing were Rodrigo Rodarte (28th in 17:19), Jesse Wolf (44th in 17:47), Michael Smith (75th in 18:50), Tyler Nelson (80th in 19:11), Nick Ballew (85th in 19:26), Kevin Nalley (86th in 19:27), Josh Pultro (89th in 19:33), and Brenden Guffey (95th in 19:59).
"Our top three ran very well today,” said Hornets coach Steve Oury. “Luke was in the lead pack for the first half of the race and did a good job of holding on despite not feeling well. Rodrigo and Jesse both competed very well and ran very close to their personal record times. Everyone gave great effort. We had a couple of guys who may have gone out a little too hard, but that is hard not to do at a meet in which the quality of competition is so high.”
Assessing the season, Oury said, “We had a pretty good season, all things considered. Obviously we would like to finish higher than ninth at the state meet, so hopefully some of our younger runners will make it their mission to lead us to a better finish.
“Luke qualified for the Arkansas-Oklahoma All-Star Meet next Saturday in Rogers, so his cross country career at Bryant is not quite over, but he has certainly done a great job for us over the last few years,” he added. “We will miss his leadership and talent next year. I'm also proud of all of the seniors on this year’s team. Tyler Nelson probably had his best race of the season in his last race, finishing as our fifth man, while Michael Smith and Kevin Nalley both left it all out there."
