McKINNEY – Every last second counted between the Plano East and Prosper girls cross country teams during Friday’s District 6-6A meet – and even then, the two squads finished in a dead heat in the final standings.
The Lady Panthers’ and Lady Eagles’ top five runners raced to a 52-point tie atop the leaderboard following a 5K run at McKinney’s Myers Park, which invoked the tiebreaker of whichever team had the higher placement among the sixth finisher in their lineups and East ultimately getting the nod for its first district title since 2017.
“We had talked about a million things yesterday and this certainly wasn’t one of them,” said Robert Reed, East head coach. “… They went into today knowing exactly what they had to do. I was giving them place feedback during the race. Halfway through the race, we were under 60 points and I knew that’s what it would take to get to regionals.”
The Lady Panthers qualified as a team for the first time since that aforementioned district title eight years prior, positioning themselves for a strong finish during Friday’s race after slotting each of their top five runners within the event’s top 15.
Reagan Noel led that effort by taking fourth overall with a time of 18:46, followed by Meena Mulford in seventh with a 19:21. Brooke Tierney (20:09, 12th), Louisa Christensen (20:19, 14th) and Alina Nguyen (20:20, 15th) rounded out East’s 52-point team total, with Dyan Tecuatl’s 22nd-place run of 20:38 giving the Lady Panthers the nod over Prosper.
“This is one of the smallest girls teams I’ve had. We had a lot of people graduate last year, but our seven varsity runners were all returning,” Reed said. “We were disappointed by how we ran last year and felt like we didn’t run to our potential. They committed themselves to training and working hard over the summer, and this is what happens when you do that – especially with a group that has talent and runs for each other.”
While East’s depth won out in the team standings, Prosper still garnered plenty of hardware from its first meet of the postseason. The Lady Eagles were paced by three runners inside the top six, including overall winner Taylor Peck, who surged ahead over the back quarter of the race to clock an 18:26 atop the individual leaderboard.
Peck, who took 13th in last year’s district meet, was joined by teammate Alivia Spangler in third place (18:42) and Maggie Breitenstein in sixth (19:03), as well as Callie Ray in 11th (19:47) and Hazyl Harding in 31st (21:07).
“Prosper ran a great race and their points were even lower than what I thought they’d do,” Reed said. “We’ve seen them a lot this year, our girls knew what they had to do and a lot of kids stepped up.”
The margins were fairly close in the boys’ race, with Prosper’s 49 points getting the better of a tight battle with rival Prosper Rock Hill, which finished in second with 55.
Like the girls’ race, the Eagles accounted for the overall meet winner as Michael McCart strung together a near-wire-to-wire victory and finished nine seconds ahead of the field with a 15:45. Teammate Noah Johnson was next across the finish line with a 15:54, while Jacob Nally (16:15, ninth), Jude Greaves (16:47, 15th) and Jeter Ramos (17:02, 22nd) rounded out Prosper’s top five.
Rock Hill meanwhile, had three runners to crack the top 10 on the morning, led by Bruno Nascimento in seventh (16:13) and Gavin Jasenof in eighth (16:14), plus Ryan Gerard in 10th (16:20).
With the top three teams and top 10 overall finishers all qualifying for the Region I-6A meet, set for Oct. 21 at Mae Simmons Park in Lubbock, runners from McKinney Boyd, Allen, Plano and Plano West will also have representation in the next round.
Boyd will have its boys and girls squads on hand after taking third on Friday – the Lady Broncos doing so after edging Plano by just two points, 107-109, for the final team qualifying berth. Zya Hoskins led that effort by taking fifth with a time of 18:49, while the boys were paced by Max Reyes in third at 15:57.
Allen qualified three individual runners for regionals, highlighted by a second-place finish by Selene Garcia at 18:31 and top-five marks from Camden Williamson (16;09 fourth) and Nathan Brookner (16:10, fifth).
Joining the East girls in Lubbock will be Levi Rowe, who paced the Panthers as a freshman with a sixth-place time of 16:11. Plano’s Emma Pearson also qualified after taking ninth with a 19:39, as did West’s Kennedy Hodges in 10th at 19:46.