Paschal will have both of its cross country teams on the line at the UIL state meet.
The Panthers' boys and girls each finished second at the Class 5A Region I championships Monday in Lubbock, and each claimed one of the four team berths available to the region for the state meet on Nov. 7 in Round Rock, according to official results posted by meet timer RunFAR Racing Services.
A title that came down to seconds
The girls' race was the tighter of the two. Prosper Richland won the team title with 153 points, and Paschal followed at 159, with Argyle third at 168 and Burleson Centennial fourth at 175. Frenship Memorial, at 194, was the first team left out.
The gap between first and second looks wider on the scoreboard than it was on the course. Cross country teams are scored by adding the finishing places of their top five runners, but the results also total each team's five scoring times. Richland's five runners combined for 1 hour, 41 minutes, 41.0 seconds.
Paschal's combined for 1:41:41.9, less than a second slower across five athletes running five kilometers each. Argyle's five actually posted the fastest combined time of the three, at 1:41:25.6, but finished third on points.
In the team scoring, which counts only runners from full teams, Paschal's five placed 16th, 18th, 23rd, 42nd and 60th. Its first two runners across the line were freshmen, and four of its five scorers were underclassmen.
Boys hold off Frenship
Mansfield Legacy won the boys' race with 105 points. Paschal took second at 150, eight points clear of Wolfforth Frenship at 158. Burleson Centennial claimed the last state spot at 188, five points ahead of Argyle and Denton, which tied at 193 for fifth.
The Panthers' boys put a runner on the podium. Their No. 1 runner finished fourth overall in 16:00.6, and in the team scoring Paschal's five placed third, 26th, 30th, 45th and 46th. Three of the last four scorers were freshmen, and the Panthers' scoring five finished within about 1 minute, 28 seconds of each other.
The race for second was decided at the back of the scoring group. Frenship's scorers placed sixth, 27th, 28th, 40th and 57th. Paschal led at the front and kept its fifth runner 11 places ahead of Frenship's, which was more than the eight-point margin that separated the two teams.
