Avery Brown, Taylor Grona, and Jetzibe Trevino take their final strides towards the finish line
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The UIL 4A girls cross country championships was expected to be a highly contended race; it was.
Individually, Avery Brown (Canyon) has been on fire all season long. She is undefeated at the 2-mile distance this season; her only loss is at 5,000m when she ran a 19:21 PR at the OSU Cowboy Jamboree.
Brown was confident heading into the race, finding her way to the front and leading at the halfway point. Her 5:46.7 led with Taylor Grona (Fredericksburg), Jetzibe Trevino (Huffman-Hargrave), Zerah Martinez (Sinton), Kathryn Tucker (Kaufman), and Macy Cogburn (Sanger) who were all in the lead pack of runners.
With just over 1K to go, only Brown, Grona, and Trevino still made up the lead pack. That's when Trevino would pull away and take the lead.
4A GIRLS TWO MILE RUN FINALS PLACE ATHLETE TEAM RESULT POINTS 1 Avery Brown 10 Canyon 11:36.60 1 2 Taylor Grona 11 Fredericksburg 11:38.30 2 3 Jetzibe Trevino 12 Huffman-Hargrave 11:38.60 3 4 Zerah Martinez 12 Sinton 11:43.10 4 5 Alexis Frick 12 Celina 11:44.00 5 6 Liana Navarro 11 La Feria 11:46.20 6 7 Abree Winfrey 12 Canyon 11:54.60 7 8 Kenli Atwood 9 Alice 11:55.00 0 9 Kathryn Tucker 10 Kaufman 11:55.20 8 10 Rilyn Grona 9 Fredericksburg 11:55.20 9
Going onto the bridge, it was Trevino with three seconds on Grona, Brown trailed Grona by two seconds, with Liana Navarro and Alexis Frick not far behind.
Brown would use her 800m speed to kick home over the final 200m to get the narrow win at 11:36 with Grona two seconds behind and Trevino right there as well to take the top three.
Martinez would also put down a ferocious kick to make up a lot of ground and finish fourth.
Celina girls stride toward the finish line and to a second straight UIL 4A state team title
TEAM SCORES PLACE TEAM POINTS SCORERS TIMES 1 Celina 70 5+11+12+16+26 (31+63) 0:54 1-5 Split | 12:14 Avg 2 Fredericksburg 86 2+9+10+29+36 (52+80) 1:09 1-5 Split | 12:14 Avg 3 Canyon Randall 108 14+15+17+30+32 (54+62) 0:25 1-5 Split | 12:29 Avg
Celina had a strong season and was able to win their second consecutive state title. Senior Frick was able to help drive her team to another win. Celina ran a 12:14 team average and their 0.54 second split closed the door for other team's hopes.
Fredericksburg finished second and also doing it with a 12:14 average. Canyon Randall only ran a 12:29 team average, which was only the fifth best team average, but their split of 0.25 seconds led them past Canyon and Kaufman who both ran faster overall team averages.
The UIL 4A girls race was one of the best of the weekend.