By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Cabot cross country team wasn’t quite at full strength, but did enjoy a good showing at the Minuteman 5K at Western Hills Golf Course in Little Rock on Saturday. The boys finished fourth out of 26 teams while the Lady Panthers took sixth out of 24 teams in the race.
The Sylvan Hills girls finishing just behind Cabot in seventh place.
The Cabot boys’ top six runners are all sophomores, and the top three finished the race in less than 18 minutes. Gardner Howze finished 14th overall with a time of 17:41.02. Blake Scott took 19th at 17:44.16 and Stuart Nickell took 23rd with a time of 17:54.11.
“Right now I think we’ve got a pretty good sophomore team,” said Cabot coach Leon White. “If they’ll stay together, by the time they’re seniors they’re going to be really good. Right now we’re learning and growing and turning in pretty good times. These next two years I think they’ll be able to compete with the best of them. It kind of makes it fun when you know you got something pretty good coming down the road.”
Lake Hamilton, Catholic and Bryant took the top three spots while Little Rock Christian Academy rounded out the boys’ top five.
The Beebe boys finished just outside the Top 10 with an 11th place finish. Jacksonville fnished 14th and Sylvan Hills was 15th.
Conway’s Toler Freyaldenhoven won the individual race by nearly 30 seconds with a time of 15:42.62, though the Wampus Cats only took eighth place in the team competition.
LRCA won the girls’ team race with Allison Risius taking first overall individually.
The Lady Panthers’ sixth-place finish came without its top runner. Senior Samantha Nickell missed the race to take the ACT, but sophomores Bailey Lebow and Casey Gore each turned in Top-10 performances. Lebow took eighth place with a time of 20:50.61, and Gore placed ninth at 21:01.00. Junior Brayden Geisler was 22nd for Cabot.
Three seniors led the seventh-place Lady Bears. Haley Fraser took 13th to lead Sylvan Hills with a time of 21:51.13. Gabriella Marquez and Dallyn Stubbs rounded out the Lady Bears’ top three.
Like the Beebe boys, the Lady Badgers also finished 11th with a whole team of six sophomores. Courtney Smith led Beebe with a time of 24:13.71.
