Wilkinson, LCS girls grab first schools 1st cross country county titles in 12 years
EAGLE LAKE — Lakeland Christian head coach Milton Lyons gave Emma Wilkinson the strategy on how to run the race and the LCS eighth-grader to perfection.
Wilkinson stayed with top rival Jaade McBride from George Jenkins for the first mile then pulled away to win the Polk County Cross Country Meet by nearly 30 seconds on Saturday morning at Lake Region High School.
It was a big day overall for the LCS girls as the Vikings won the team title for the first time since Mallory White and Spookie Eaves went 1-2 to lead LCS to the title in 2011. Wilkinson's individual title also was the first by an LCS runner since White's win that year.
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George Jenkins junior Caden Baker also won his first title as the boys champion, and Geneva Classical won the boys team title.
Going into the race, Wilkinson knew that McBride was going to be her chief competition.
"I was nervous that I wasn't going to win," she said. "I hadn't raced Jaade before and I hadn't beat her before. ... I didn't really expect it. My goal was just get into the 19s."
Wilkinson stayed with McBride for the first mile then pulled away. She was surprised that McBride wasn't staying with her.
"I thought she'd be closer," Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson won with a personal record 19:09.1. McBride was second in 19:32.1. Both runners were more than a minute faster than All Saints' Lindsey Cook who was third in 20:4.9.
Wilkinson's next goal is to break White's school record of 18:30.81.
Junior Lauren Bayes was the only other LCS runner to finish in the top 10. She was ninth in 21:20.5. The Vikings had three more runners in the top 20 in Sarah Workman (13th), Kenley Allen (16th) and Emma Green (17th).
Lakeland Christian beat George Jenkins in the team competition with 44 points to Jenkins' 53 points, followed by Lakeland (62) and McKeel (76).
"I knew it would be between four schools if everyone was healthy, Lakeland, McKeel, George Jenkins and us," Lyons said.
Lyons said the key was every runner ran at the place where each was expected to run or better.
"Each girl had assignments to run with certain runners to keep the points down, and our top five girls did that," she said.
In the boys race, Baker also won by nearly 30 seconds. He ran 16:23.6. Ridge Community's Kruz Schembri was second in 16:50.3, and Lake Wales' William Windham was third in 16:54.8.
"I was just trying to go out and win it," Baker said. "We did a lot less miles this week so we'd kind of be fresh for county. Our team ran well, the girls ran well so it was just go out and win."
Baker said he wasn't concerned with his time for this meet.
Geneva Classical had four runners in the top 10, Liam Holzer (fifth), Tyler McDow (seventh), Oliver Dempsey (eighth) and Michale McDow (ninth), and won the team competition with 41 points. Jenkins was second with 70 points.
Roy Fuoco can be reached at roy.fuoco@theledger.com.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Wilkinson, LCS win girls county titles; Baker, Geneva tops for boys
