KERNERSVILLE — Southern Nash High cross-country runner Brooklyn Rice capped an impressive freshman season with an 11th-place finish Saturday, Nov. 1, at the NCHSAA championship meet at Ivey M. Redmon Athletic Complex.

Rice, who won every 5-A/6-A Big East Conference meet as well as the Nash County championship meet, led the Big East-champion Ladybirds as they placed 16th out of 18 teams at the meet.

The Hunt boys, the first Warriors team to compete in a state since 2000, finished 17th overall while Warriors junior Brooklyn Thoms posted the next best finish of any runner from the Times readership area behind Rice as she was 43rd out of 144 girls.

Rice posted a personal record-time of 19 minutes, 33.37 seconds on the 5-kilometer course, smashing her previous best at last week’s 5-A East Regional meet by more than 21 seconds.

Junior Emma Batchelor was next for the Ladybirds, coming in 94th in 23:06.17, followed by senior Ana Alonso (102nd, 23:31.58), sophomore Erica Benitez (108th, 23:51) and senior Erika Landa (123rd, 24:36.64).

Thoms, the Wilson County girls champion and an all-region first-team performer, enjoyed a personal victory as she sprinted past Rocky Mount junior Candrice Davis at the final line to finish in 21:30.52, just four-hundredths of a second ahead of Davis. Thoms finished behind Davis in all but one Big East meet this fall.

The Hunt boys, the first team state qualifier in head coach Rusty Boyette’s 15 seasons, were led by seniors Mason Gesell and Christan Hall, who swept across the finish line nearly simultaneously. Gesell was 72nd out of 145 runners in 18:06.12 while Hall was 74th in 18:06.19. Not far back in 100th was sophomore Landen Johnson with a time of 18:39.37 while senior Luke Johnson (135th, 20:14.08) and senior Tristan Hall (139th, 20:33.31) rounded out Hunt’s scoring.

Sophomore Kyle Smart and senior Aiden Chase represented the Southern Nash boys as Smart was 126th overall in 19:36.97 and Chase was 133rd in 20:07.04.

North Buncombe senior Michael Ferguson was the boys state 5-A champion with a time of 15:18.31 while Oak Grove of Davidson County won the boys team title with 60 points.

North Lincoln dominated the girls meet with a near-perfect score of 19 after placing all five scoring runners in the top seven and six of the top eight overall. Senior Olivia Ferraro led a top-3 sweep for North Lincoln with a winning time of 18:24.75.