By Richard Greene | Published Thursday, October 29, 2009
Several minutes after the District 9-2A boys race at Joe Wheeler Park in Decatur, the members of the Paradise Panthers cross country team started an equally heated race to see who could reach their coach, Lynn Cook, first to celebrate the regional berth.
"They were pretty excited," Cook said. "We knew it would be close. Everyone ran well and contributed to this."
Paradise scored 68 points to take second and earn a trip to the Class 2A Region II meet at Arlington's Vandergriff Park Nov. 7. Brock won the district meet with 43 points. Millsap was third at 76. Boyd also scored 76 points.
The tiebreaker and the last regional bid went to Millsap, on the strength of its sixth-place runner, Frederick Johnson, finishing 25th ahead of Boyd's sixth runner, Charles Whatley, in 30th place.
"We had some seniors that ran good," said Boyd coach Oscar Hernandez. "The cold weather hurt our top runner. Our sixth runner, who is our point guard in basketball, just came to help and almost pulled it off for us. I'm still proud of everyone."
The region-bound Paradise team was led by Logan Bailey and Gavin Von Heuvel, who finished second and third. Derek Hudson of Peaster won the individual district medal, running 18:02 on the three-mile course. Bailey finished in 18:06 and Von Heuvel third in 18:10.
"They ran a great race," Cook said. "This is the first time Logan has beat Gavin."
Bailey and Von Heuvel were behind Millsap's Michael Coursey through the first two miles. In the last mile, Bailey said they found some extra energy to pass Coursey, who finished fourth in 18:23.
"On the back stretch, I tried to catch the guys in front of me," Bailey said. "I got this surge of energy and caught one of the guys and kept my pace.
"We now have two weeks until regionals. We plan to work every morning to do our best," he said.
Paradise's third runner was Hunter Harkins, running a 19:34 to finish 12th. Jacob Garza took 20th in 20:12. Paradise's fifth team member, Toi Glover, ran 22:42 to finish 33rd. Calahan Storey took 36th in 24:22.
Boyd's second runner was Keaton Scruggs, who ran 19:33 to take 11th. Matthew Shearer ran 19:53, finishing 15th. Jake May and Austin Booth finished 24th and 25th. May ran a 20:47, finishing two seconds in front of Booth. Whatley ran a 22:21.
