Spearman's Tylo Farrar, center, and teammate Sutton Garnett, left, lead the pack at the start of the Class 2A race at the state cross country meet Saturday in Round Rock. The Lynxettes successfully defended their state championship, with Farrar finishing second and Garnett finishing fourth.
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Three hours after Spearman captured its second consecutive Class 2A state title in girls cross country, district rivals Gruver and Sunray finished first and second in the Class 1A race at Old Settlers' Park on Saturday.
In the first race of the morning, the Lynxettes put four runners in the top 11 and all five scoring runners in the top 24 to win with 51 points, well ahead of the 87 posted by runner-up Brock.
After winning state last year, the Lynxettes weren't able to sneak up on anyone Saturday.
"Our parents were walking around with shirts that have a big target on the backs," Lynxette coach Starla Whiteley said. "Today, I felt like, with some of the teams from other regions, they were pointing us out and showing what our uniforms looked like."
Tylo Farrar paced the team, finishing second in 12 minutes, 4 seconds.
"We started out really fast, and those girls killed the pace," she said. "We knew it would be fast and prepared for it."
Sutton Garnett was fourth overall, 10 seconds behind Farrar.
"We just felt good the whole race," she said. "We'd talked yesterday about where we need to sprint and where we need to stride out, and we did that."
Gately Garnett was 10th, with Sarah Snider in 11th and Leanna Espinosa finishing 24th for the Lynxettes. Espinosa and Sutton Garnett are Spearman's only seniors, and the other five runners are sophomores.
"We have five girls coming back and some other girls coming back, so hopefully we can come back and do what we did this year," Farrar said.
In the 1A race, Gruver finished with 83 points, just ahead of Sunray's total of 86 to win state, less than a month after Gruver basketball player Alexas Tyler was killed in a car accident that also injured runner Daniela Luciano.
"We had a lot of confidence from the regional meet and had a lot of help from people that reached out to us - Coach Whiteley from Spearman and Coach (Ray) Baca from Hereford talked to the girls and talked about how they were the feel-good story of the year," Lady Hounds coach Rob Been said. "We were at such a low when we lost Allie. For these girls to pick themselves back up and deliver like this is amazing."
