By MICHAEL BOYLAN
Sports Editor

The state cross country championships were held on Saturday in Carrollton. Some of the results were what you expected, Landmark Christian's boys won the Class A championship, while other results had some of our local teams falling short.

Landmark Christian won the meet with a score of 42 points. The second place team was Greater Atlanta Christian with a total of 65 points. The strength of Landmark's performance was in the fact that all of their top seven runners finished in the top 40. Taking first place was Kyle Rabbitt with a time of 16:47. Nathan Kosiba placed second overall with a time of 16:47. They were the only two runners in single A competition to finish with a time under 17 minutes.

Rounding out Landmark's top seven were Clark Rivers finishing fifth (17:32), Blake Fertitta finishing eighth (17:42), Eric Sumner finishing 29th (18:46), Jonathan Best finishing 33rd (18:52) and Chris Rogers placing 38th (19:02). Landmark were definitely the favorites going into competition and they should have a strong track season this spring as well.

Last years girls AAAA champions, the McIntosh Chiefs, fell a little short this year. They placed third overall behind Walton and South Gwinnett respectively. In fact, the Chiefs finished third to the same two teams a few weeks ago at the Last Chance meet on the same course in Carrollton. McIntosh had some injuries early on in the season and stayed dominant in region competition, but they only had one runner finish in the top ten on Saturday, Judy Thomasson who finished fourth with a time of 20:08.

They will return the bulk of their squad next year and by bringing in some added depth of the soccer team this fall, they will be much more experienced and powerful next season. The Chiefs finish the season as region champs and the third best team in AAAA in the state.

Starr's Mill's girls also showed off their stuff on Saturday, placing second in the state to Marist. The Panthers scored 93 points overall and had two runners finish in the top ten, Katie Hughes placed eighth with a time of 20:47 and Ashley Meredith placed 10th with a time of 21:00. Starr's Mill looks forward to their spring track season as well as running in AAAA next year, after realignment. The team has depth and a number of girls returning to the squad.

The Starr's Mill boys placed sixth overall in the state, recording 184 points overall. They did not have a top ten finisher but got good production out of their squad. Fayette County's boys performed well in the AAAA meet, too. They did not finish in the top ten teams but had a top ten finisher in Trey Alverson, who finished fifth overall with a time of 16:56.

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