Buchholz High School and Oak Hall School will send their teams to the FHSAA cross country state championships on Saturday after qualifying performances at regionals in Jacksonville.  

The state championships will be held at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee. 

The Buchholz boys and girls teams each earned second place in the Class 4A Region 1 meet, following first-place finishes at the district championships. 

Buchholz’s Demetrie Meyers (15 minutes, 9.54 seconds) and Samuel Freas (15:12.77) finished fourth and fifth, respectively. A trio of Oviedo High School runners finished ahead of the two, and the Oviedo team took first place with 22 points compared with 71 points for Buchholz. 

The Buchholz boys also took 16th and 17th with Davis Garrett (16:02) and Brennen Bentley (16:02.56), and Andrew Sides (16:27.26) gave the team its final points position with a 32nd place finish.  

The top five Bobcats’ girls runners crossed the line within 37 seconds of each other. The girls each finished between the No. 12 and No. 22 scoring positions.  

The Buchholz girls team earned 74 points, behind Creekside High School with 53 points. 

Alexandra Rossi (19:01.19) finished 12th followed by Valeria Beaver (19:06.41) in 14th, Annika Caedington (19:08.41) in 15th, Phoebe Verschage (19:34.51) in 21st and Jamey Armstrong (19:37.42) in 22nd.  

The Buchholz boys won gold at the state championship last year for the first time in 30 years, and the girls team finished in second place. In 2023, the roles were reversed, and the girls team took gold while the boys finished with silver.  

The Oak Hall girls won third place in a competitive Class 1A Region 1 matchup, while the boys team earned fourth place. 

The Oak Hall girls team punched its 25th straight trip to the state championships behind the legs of Estella Collante (18:17.24), who finished in second place to Jaimee Tutton (18:13.64) of Pensacola Christian Academy.   

Collante surpassed her district’s time by 42 seconds. She finished second at the Bobcat Classic in September.  

Behind her, Lola Murfee (19:27.51) locked in fifth place. Reese Allen (20:11.61) and Alexis Thur de Koos (20:17.81) finished in 11th and 12th places, respectively. Macie Bell earned 37th place overall (22:05.2). 

Providence School totaled 49 points for gold compared with Pensacola Christian Academy with 61 points and Oak Hall School with 64 points.  

For the Eagle boys, Andrew Eisner (16:11.06) earned the sixth spot overall. Against the same field of runners, Eisner climbed one place compared with the district championship, where he ran 36 seconds slower. He won the Bobcat Classic in Gainesville earlier this year. 

Henri Pelletier (16:53.59) finished next for the Eagles in 14th place. Benjamin Gallogly (17:11.97), Matthew Silva (17:26.35) and Jacob Motamarry (17:36.85) rounded out the team’s points finishers with 21st, 24th and 32nd places, respectively. 

Gainesville High School’s Audrey Dunn also earned a top 10 individual finish in the Class 3A Region 1 championship. Dunn (19:23.47) crossed in seventh place overall, and the Lady Hurricanes took fourth place as a team with 89 points, behind Chiles (31 points), Ponte Vedra (52) and Beachside (61).