College Heights swept the senior titles at the Zone 8 cross-country high school running series at Cottonwood Park on the weekend.
Isaac Goodrich and Julia Babicz crossed the finish line first in their respective groups for the Cougars at the meet. Goodrich completed the senior boys race in 21 minutes, 32 seconds, while Babicz needed 16:06 to finish the senior girls race.
Cole Dinsdale of Correlieu (Quesnel) placed second in the senior boys race and Nechako Valley (Vanderhoof) runner Charlie Borek was third. Another Cougar, Colten Illingworth was fourth.
Crossing the finish line less than a minute behind Babicz in the senior girls race was Danica Robson from Lake City secondary in Williams Lake. In third place was Julia Steinbech of NVSS, followed by a trio of Cougars - Bianca Zemliac, Ariel Gilbert and Abbey Goodrich.
Senior runners are in Grades 11 and 12. In the junior category (Grade 10), Nechako Valley swept the top three places for boys, with Lachlan Fantillo coming first in 17:09. In the junior girls, Kaitlyn Verduzco of Nechako Valley was first with a time of 16:56, followed by the Cougars Cassidy Stella and Correlieu's Bayley McGillvray.
In the juvenile (Grade 9) category, Matthew Ebert of NVSS was first for boys and Olivia Baptiste of Quesnel Junior won the girls race.
The bantam (Grade 8) races were won by Olin Lee of Quesnel Junior for boys and Georgia Verduzco of NVSS for girls. Krist Illingworth of College Heights won the elementary race for girls.
In the open category for runners 19 and older, Zach Matyas was first, followed by Nick Bartell and Greg Tone. Only two women entered with Angela Wheeler finishing first followed by Steph Gouin.
