Two cross country region meets will be held tomorrow and local teams and runners should do very well.

The Region 2-AAAA meet will take place at Sandy Creek High School with the girls running at 9 a.m. and the boys race starting at 9:45 a.m. McIntosh’s Emily Borsare and Starr’s Mill’s Austin Enriquez will be tough to beat in their races and both won the county meet, which was held on the same course, just a few weeks ago.
In their last race, the Last Chance Invitational in Carrollton, Borsare finished with a time of 18:12 and Enriquez finished with a time of 16:11.

As for how the teams will do, McIntosh’s girls won the county title and won the Class AAAA race at Last Chance. They had four girls finish in the top 20 last Saturday (Borsare, Kate West, April Esposito and Kaia Hampton) and look very strong. Starr’s Mill’s girls placed fifth and had two girls in the top 20 (Jackie Sample and Molly Musselwhite), while Whitewater placed eighth with three in the top 20 (Kasie Knapper, Claire Huff and Brianna Londrillo).

On the boy’s side of the Last Chance Invitational, Starr’s Mill took fifth, Whitewater placed 11th and McIntosh placed 14th. Only Enriquez and Fayette County’s Ryan Kennedy placed in the top 20 of that race. Starr’s Mill looks to be the team to beat, but it could be a close finish.

The region 5-A meet will take place at Our Lady of Mercy on Saturday with the girls running at 9 a.m. and the boys running at 9:40 a.m. This race, as always, will come down to Landmark Christian and Our Lady of Mercy. On the girls side, Landmark seems to have the advantage. They placed second in the Class AA/A race at Last Chance last Saturday, while the Lady Bobcats placed fourth. Three Landmark runners placed in the top 10 (Kaity Bulger, Hannah Gravitt and Georgiana Moody) while only one runner from Our Lady of Mercy finished in the top 10 (Sarah Hohenberger).

Things will be a lot closer on the boys side. Our Lady of Mercy, which won the Fayette County championships a few weeks ago, also won the Last Chance meet last Saturday. Jake Lethbridge took first place (16:50) with his brother, Matt, 13 seconds behind him. All five runners on the Bobcat squad (The Lethbridges, Thomas Raville, Tim Kennedy and Jared Cooper) placed in the top 20. Landmark had three runners in the top 20 (Chad Thames, Alek Pike and Michael Leonard).

The region meets will be exciting and many of these teams will be in contention for state titles as well.