Elizabeth Leachman, Lovejoy Were Unquestionable In 5A Girls

Sara Morefield and Camryn Benson help Lovejoy three-peat at the UIL 5A XC State Championships

Boerne Champion sophomore Elizabeth Leachman capped off one of the greatest State-level cross country seasons with a dominant title run on Friday morning at Old Settlers Park in Round Rock where she crossed the tape in 16:25.5, a State meet course record. Meanwhile, the Lucas Lovejoy girls methodically went about winning their third straight team title with a total of 40 points, 41 ahead of runner-up Aledo.

Leachman finished 20th in the same meet last year, a strong performance for a freshman, but in the 12 months since that time she has transformed herself into one of the top runners in the nation. She led the race at the mile mark by seven seconds over Isabel Conde de Frankenberg (Cedar Park Vista Ridge) before blasting a 4:55 second mile to gap the rest the leaders and she never looked back as she covered the final 1.1 miles in 5:54, a full 27 seconds faster than anyone in the field.

Conde de Frankenberg finished off an amazing high school cross country career where she finished in the top-3 in the State all four years, including a State title as a freshman. She has finished in second each of the past two years and finished in 17:34.2 this year, 20 seconds ahead of third place Sara Morefield (Lucas Lovejoy). The next two finishers were Camryn Benson (Lucas Lovejoy) and Sydni Wilkins (Frisco Liberty) who each were outside of the top-10 after the first mile but were able to move up over the final two miles.

Lucas Lovejoy's performance was not quite as dominant as last year where they scored 28 points, but it was impressive regardless. At the mile mark they were only six points in front of Aledo, but that was where they made their move as a team. All seven runners on the squad dropped their times from the first mile (6:09 average) to the second mile (5:43 average) and they were able to hold their positions to secure the team title. The top five of Morefield, Benson, Peyton Benson, Kailey Littlefield and Bridget Bernal all ran better than 19 minutes and had a 1-5 split of 1:01.

Aledo finished in second place and ran quite well with a 1-5 split of 1:11 and a 1-5 average of 18:51. Micah Neal led them with a seventh place finish in 18:14.4 while Molly Garrison was 12th in 18:24.9. Georgetown, Colleyville Heritage and College Station rounded out the top five teams.