Mike Ridaught
The streak continued for the Oak Hall School girls and boys cross country teams, who swept the FHSAA Class 1A-District 3 championships on Thursday.
The Lady Eagles won the district title with a score of 17, which was 60 points better than second-place finisher St. John Lutheran (Ocala) (77).
Branford (82), Trinity Catholic (Ocala) (97) and P.K. Yonge (130) rounded out the top five.
MacKenzie Klein of Oak Hall was the overall individual girls winner with a time of 19:10.3 in the 5K race, followed by teammates Valeria Beaver and Lola Murfee to give the Lady Eagles the top three finishers in the race.
“I’m very proud of Mackenzie winning her first district individual title,” said Oak Hall coach Edwin McTureous.
It was the 14th straight district team title for the girls, who will be shooting for their 23rd straight year going to State as a team next week.
On the boys’ side, Oak Hall finished first with a score of 32, followed by St. Francis Catholic Academy (66), Trinity Catholic (77), P.K. Yonge (156) and Wildwood in the top five.
Sam Stone of St. Francis Catholic finished second (16:23.2) behind Trinity Catholic’s Cedric Mcfadden (16:21.4), while Oak Hall’s Quinten Dragstedt finished third with a time of 16:32.0 and OHS’ Peter Peloso (16:50.6) rounded out the top five.
“It is always great to win a district title(s) and a good way to start our postseason run,” McTureous said. “Both teams have been training hard and I was pleased to see how everyone competed today. We haven’t raced since 10/14, so it was great to knock off some of the rust and get ready for next week’s regional meet.”
It was the sixth straight district title for the boys’ team.
Official results: http://live.halfmiletiming.com/meets/598/events