Regional Saturday for XC runners

The cross country season’s finish line is near.

County teams this weekend will compete in their respective regional competitions.

Runners from Cashion, Lomega, Hennessey and Kingfisher will all tackle the course at Chisholm for their regional meets in 2A, 3A and 4A.

“We’re pretty happy with our assignment,” said Kingfisher High School cross country coach Kerri Lafferty.

“Weatherford will be our toughest competition for the boys and girls.”

The KHS girls are the defending Class 4A state champs. They also won the regional at Chisholm a year ago.

They enter this year’s regional ranked sixth. Weatherford is ranked third.

The KHS boys are ranked 20th while Weatherford’s boys are No. 2.

Lafferty said repeating as regional champion won’t be easy against a talented Weatherford team.

“But anything is possible,” she said. “We have some runners who have to get their times down to certain marks. They can do it, for sure, but they will have to run their best.”

Class 4A girls are the first to run as Kingfisher will go off at 10 a.m. The 4A boys are at 10:45.

In Class 2A, which features Lomega and Cash-ion, girls will run at noon and the boys at 12:45.

The Lomega boys are ranked No. 3 in Class 2A. They won their regional at Henryetta last year.

Senior Kaitin Taylor of Cashion is among the top girls runners in Class 2A.

Class 3A is the last to run and it will include runners from Hennessey.

Girls start at 2 p.m. and the boys at 2:45 p.m.

Hennessey is ranked 17th among 3A girls while the HHS boys are 27th.

Chisholm is one of three regional sites for each class.

The top seven teams from each class will advance to the following Saturday’s state meet at Gordon Cooper Technology Center in Shawnee.

Also moving on will be the top seven individual runners from non-qualifying teams.

Following are the regional assignments for teams at Chisholm in Classes 2A, 3A and 4A:

Class 2A

Balko, Beaver, Boise City, Buffalo, Burlington, Burns Flat-Dill City, Canton, Carnegie, Cashion, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Cimarron, Covington-Douglas, Drummond, Fairview, Frontier, Ft. Supply, Garber, Goodwell, Hammon, Hooker, Kremlin-Hillsdale, Laverne, Lomega, Medford, Mooreland, Mulhall-Orlando, Oklahoma Bible Academy, Ringwood, Taloga, Tonkawa, Turpin

Class 3A

Alva, Chandler, Chisholm, Christian Heritage, Crossings Christian, Dove Science, Hennessey, Heritage Hall, Jones, Meeker, Oklahoma Christian School, Perry, Prague, Riverside, Washington

Class 4A

Anadarko, ASTEC, Bethany, Cleveland, Clinton, Community Christian, Douglass, Elk City, Harding Charter, Harrah, Kingfisher, Mannford, McLoud, Perkins-Tryon, Weatherford