The Regional Cross Country meets took place Monday with several teams and individuals from Montague County competing for a chance to qualify for the state meet in Round Rock on Nov. 2.
With hundreds of competitors and many teams, only the top four teams and the top 10 individuals whose teams did not make it were able to qualify. Sadly no teams from Montague County qualified, but two individuals did qualify individually from Saint Jo and Prairie Valley.
The 1A Region III race location was moved from the standard course at Lynn Creek, Grand Prairie to the Jesse Owens Memorial Complex at the University of Texas at Arlington due to the heavy rain. The ground was still a bit soft and with 1A being the last group of runners to compete, the course had turned pretty muddy anyway.
Still, it did not slow down the two state qualifiers as they ran their best times of the year. Saint Jo’s Logan Morman finished third with a time of 16:44. It is Morman’s second straight year qualifying for the state meet.
Prairie Valley’s Cosima Ermert qualified individually by finishing 13th overall with a personal best time of 13:44. Ermert helped the Lady Bulldogs to a 10th place finish as a team, one spot better than last year’s team. A foreign exchange student, this is the first time Ermert has competed in cross country. Ermert is one of the first girl runners from Prairie Valley to qualify for the state meet in several years.
For Bowie and Nocona’s runners, they traveled to Lubbock to run at Mae Simmons Park at Texas Tech. In contrast the runners had great course and weather conditions. Unfortunately, no teams or individuals were able to qualify for the state meet.
The Lady Indian’s team had the highest finish for any team in the county as they earned ninth place. Maria Hernandez finished first for Nocona in 23rd place with a time of 12:48. She was just five spots away from qualifying individually. The Nocona boy’s team finished 21st with top runner Joan Gomez finishing 39th individually with a time of 17:56.
The Bowie boys team finished 19th with Alex Shelton finishing 50th overall to pace the Jackrabbits with a time of 18:16. The Lady Rabbits had Abby Zamzow qualify individually. Zamzow was trying to recover from a back injury she suffered weeks previously that she had to play through due to her playing volleyball at the same time.  She finished 90th with a time of 13:36.
Other teams were the boys and girls from Bellevue. The Lady Eagles finished 20th overall as a team, with Sky-Lar Embry finishing first for Bellevue in 63rd with a time of 15:35. The Bellevue boys finished 13th with Jacob Ekeberger finishing 70th with a time of 20:51. Dylan Edwards and Mark Gill were not far behind him finishing 72nd and 73rd. The experience will help the Eagles greatly as they transition into basketball season.
Other runners competing individually in 1A was William Winkler from Prairie Valley and Kassidy Pitman from Saint Jo.
Winkler was trying to return to the state meet after qualifying last year. He was coming off an ankle injury that troubled him two weeks ago at the district meet. He tried to balance recovery with training since, but it was not enough as Winkler finished 45th with a time of 19:21.
Pitman was trying to improve her performance after competing at regionals for the first time last year as a freshman. She did as she finished 58th with a time of 15:11.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.