Mason County is hopeful to take home their third straight Class AA, Region 6 cross country regional championship on Saturday. (Evan Dennison, The Ledger Independent)
HIGH SCHOOL CROSS COUNTRY
Augusta is hopeful for their best finish in program history at the Class A, Region 5 meet at Mason County on Saturday. (Evan Dennison, The Ledger Independent)
The Mason County’s girls’ cross country team looks for a three-peat in the Class AA, Region 6 on Saturday when they host one of three regional meets on the day at their home course.
Mason County was awarded as the site to host regional meets this season as they’ll also host the Class AA, Region 4 meet and the Class A, Region 5 meet.
The Class AA, Region 6 meet kicks things off at 9:30 a.m. with the girls’ race and 10:15 a.m. for the boys’ race with Mason County and Fleming County as the area teams in the meet.
The Class AA, Region 4 meet will then begin at 12:15 p.m for the girls’ race, 1 p.m. for the boys’ race.
The final meet of the day will be the Class A, Region 5 meet at 3 p.m. for girls’, 3:45 p.m. for boys’. Augusta, Bracken County and St. Patrick will take part in that meet.
Weather is expected to be cooler with the temperature in the 50’s with no rain in the forecast.
Each runner is allowed three wristbands per runner, spectators must have wrist bands to enter. There will be two different entrances for the race, one for spectators and one for the teams. Temperature checks and contract tracing forms are required.
There will be no awards with photo opportunities after the race for the winners.
Here’s a look at the two area boys’ and girls’ races:
Girls Class AA, Region 6
Eight full girls’ teams will be in the meet, meaning the top five teams will advance and the next five individuals to next Friday’s KHSAA state meet at Bourbon County.
The Lady Royals have held the top spot the last two years and while expected to do so once again, will have some competition from Boyd County and Rowan County. Russell is expected to round out the top four teams while Greenup County, East Carter, Fleming County and Ashland Blazer will also be competing for the top four spots.
The individual race should be a good one if prior meets this season at Mason County are any indicator, Mason County’s Layla Henderson expected to be in competition for the top three spots along with teammate Paige Decker and Boyd County’s Faith Newsome.
The Lady Royals should have plenty of others in the top 10-20 spots in the race with Alyssa Bissotti, Elizabeth Lavinder, Hayden Faris and Morgan Carpenter all in that mix. In fact, the team is so deep, coach Mark Kachler is still undecided on who his seventh runner will be between Alexis Decker, Rachel Payne, Kendra Shoemaker and Hadley Maher.
“Even though we’re pretty young, we’ve got a lot of experience heading into this race. This is the fourth or fifth region meet for some of them, even the sixth one for Hayden,” Kachler said. “I’ll make the call tomorrow on who the seventh runner will be and there isn’t a wrong decision between the three, all three are capable. We just want to make sure we have everyone healthy in the morning.”
Fleming County has five girls’ in the meet with Addison Corwin, Ariel Grannis, Erin Pease, Kalynn Pease and Elizabeth Womack running.
Boys Class AA, Region 6
Six full teams will be running on Saturday with the top four advancing to the KHSAA state meet.
Boyd County enters as the heavy favorite with Russell and Rowan County expected to be comfortably in the top three. The fourth and final spot for state will be an intriguing one, with Ashland, Mason County and East Carter battling for it.
After Carson Adams, Cole Wright and Peyton Ullery, the Royals will be sending out three eighth graders in Deshawn Overly, Elijah Reed and Alex Brannon to try and help get them to Bourbon County at the state meet next Friday.
The trio of eighth graders ran their first varsity competition last week at Bourbon County so will be rather green entering Saturday’s meet. If last week is a gauge, the Royals were edged by Ashland by a handful of points in the team standings.
Fleming County has three individuals running in the boys’ race: Lucas Campbell, Caleb Fannin and Kaine Roberts.
Boys Class A, Region 5
With the emergence of two runners late in the season, Augusta looks for their best finish in a regional meet Saturday. They’ve made one trip as a team to the state meet in coach Tim Litteral’s 10 years of coaching the program, looking for a second as 10 teams will be competing and five advancing to the state meet.
Litteral feels confident they can take a top two or three finish with Trimble County being the favorites entering the meet. Danville is in that mix with them with others like Bracken County, Sayre and Owen County all in the mix to compete for a top five spot and a berth to the state meet.
Conner Snapp and Bryant Curtis are expected to pace the Panthers while newcomers Mike and Matt Jones ran right at or under 19 minutes in their first meet of the season last week at Bourbon County. Grayson Miller and Eli Cline round out the Panthers team primed for a solid showing Saturday.
“We’re expecting Conner to lead our pack, but Bryant has lower times at Mason County twice this year. But Conner is our leader and we expect him to come out and lead. Him and Bryant have been back and forth this season. Mike and Matt had a nice showing in their first meet last week and we’re expecting them to be our third and fourth runners,” Litteral said.
While Litteral is optimistic his team can have a good showing, it’s still a meet of unknowns, not having faced many teams in the region throughout the season.
Bracken County is one of those unknowns, having trouble putting a full team in meets all season due to health, but look to have some back with some newcomers running in Saturday’s meet. As of Friday’s performance list, the Polar Bears have seven boys’ entering the race. Damon Bryant has led the team all season while Nicholas Cummins looks to be back from injury.
After that the Polar Bears have Dallas Carl, Grant Free, Carson King, Cayden Reed and Thomas Yelton running.
St. Patrick is putting one boys’ runner in the meet, seventh grader Amari Myrick. He’ll need to finish as one of the top five individuals not on one of the state qualifying teams in order to qualify for the state meet.
Girls Class A, Region 5
Nine full teams will be in the girls’ meet while St. Patrick and Augusta will have individual runners competing for state.
The Lady Saints are entering Hadley Mellenkamp and Morgan Riddle into the race while the Lady Panthers have Braylie Curtis.
Mellenkamp hopes to qualify for the state meet again with Riddle hoping to capitalize this season, just missing out on the state meet last year.
Curtis made the state meet when she was at Bracken County last year and looks to be in a good spot for a top 10 finish in a top-heavy meet. Those three would need to be the next five individual finishers outside of the top five teams in order to qualify for the state meet.
Bracken County has eight girls’ runners listed on the performance list and is hopeful to be one of the top five teams to qualify for the state meet led by eighth grader Lynex Cummins, who qualified for the state meet last year.
