Northeast runs away with titles at Bonita
By By Ryan Satcher / staff writer
Sept. 12. 2004
Northeast Lauderdale High School ran away with both championships in the Lauderdale County Cross Country meet at Bonita Lakes on Saturday morning.
The Lady Trojans took first with a score of 16, and the Trojans took first with 24 points in the boys meet.
"Overall, we had a good meet, especially for the girls," said Northeast coach James Matthews. "The boys were really good. Times really came down. I had five guys under 20 minutes for the first time in a number of years. Several guys set personal bests today which is always good and the girls were the same way. A lot of them set personal records."
Northeast's Yolanda Truman took first place in the girls meet, while West Lauderdale's Corey Rigdon ran away with the boys competition.
Truman finished with a time of 17:50 and held off teammate Bianca McDonald in a final sprint in the girls 2.5-mile run.
"I felt really good," said Truman. "My mile times were pretty good. I thought I was going to get second but when we were sprinting in I really pushed myself."
Rigdon blistered the 3.1-mile course for a 17:27 to knock off Northeast's Antonio Serton in the boys meet.
"I felt better today about running and I just wanted to win," said Rigdon. "I've wanted to break 18 (minutes) for the last couple of races."
In the girls team competition, Meridian came in second with 58 points and West Lauderdale took third with 71 points. Clarkdale took fourth with 107 and Southeast finished with 116 points.
In the boys race, West Lauderdale finished in second with 40 points while Clarkdale took third with 69 points.
In the girls meet, Northeast took the top four positions and finished with five runners in the top sixth places.
Truman and McDonald took first and second while Whitney Ward finished two seconds back at 17:53. Jill Pitts finished third with a time of 17:59.
Brittany Bostic finished off the Northeast top five with a time of 18:01 and a sixth-place finish in the meet.
Meridian High finished with a pair of runners in the top 10 as Sara Hammes finished in fifth place with an 18:01 and Anna Allred took seventh with an 18:09.
In the boys meet, West Lauderdale took two of the top three positions as Rigdon took first and teammate Ryan Hill came in third place with a time of 18:40.
The Trojans finished with five runners in the top seven spots to pick up the team victory. Serton took second with an 18:10 and Owen Lide finished fourth with an 19:03.
Brach Barham (19:07), Hendrick Jefferson (19:58) and Matt Snyder (20:00) came in fifth through seventh for Northeast.
Clarkdale's Tanner Cline ran a strong race to finish eighth in a time of 20:08. West's Jay Stoddard and Southeast's Dustin Pounders round out the top ten.
This year was the first for the county competition and according to Matthews it should turn out to be a big cross country event each season.
"We are going to do this every year," said Matthews. "We will probably take turns doing it and each of us with host. We want to make it an annual thing. This is a sport everyone can compete in a group. Now that all the schools have teams we can make it a true county championship."
