BY JIM HENRY
Webb City made a clean sweep of all the top awards on Saturday in the Class 4 District 6 cross country meet at the Inman Elementary School course in Nixa.
The Cardinals won the boys team title with 30 points and the girls firstplace plaque with 21 points. It was the Cardinals' first girls district title in school history and the fourth for the boys and first since 2016.
Individually, the Cardinals' Roman Borboa prevailed in the boys race, and Riley Hawkins led a 1-2-3 finish in the girls race.
"It was a productive day for us," Webb City coach Dustin Miller said.
Hawkins won with a time of 20 minutes, 22 seconds, followed by Hailey Philpot (21:03) and Abi Street (21:06). The Cardinals' Isabelle Lopez took eighth place, Mileah Metcalf ninth, Katherine Moore 15th and Velissa Perez 19th.
"Riley Hawkins was a surprise a little bit," Miller said. "We all know she's good, but for her to have by far her best race of the season was huge for us.
Hailey and Abi ran well like they've been doing, and Metcalf, our No. 5, has struggled this season but put together a great race. The girls ran their best race of the season for sure."
Webb City's boys lived up to being the pre-race favorite with all seven runners in the top-14.
Borboa won in 16:30, finishing two seconds ahead of Rogersville's Landon Hendrickson and Webb City's Joseph Dawson.
Hendrickson beat Dawson by 0.01 seconds.
Also for the Cardinals, Dustin Brockmiller was seventh, Owen Weller ninth, Jose Banda-antillon 12th, Samuel Winesburg 13th and Shane Winters 14th.
"We had a good game plan," Miller said. "Roman ran well to win, his first time looking good in a month or so. Joe Dawson getting third was a good race for him. It's only his third race all season. He's rounding himself into race shape. He'll be there when it matters.
"Our times were not what we'd hoped for. We're happy to get a win and put ourselves in position to compete hopefully for a stte title next week (on Friday in Columbia)."
Joplin Globe 11/01/2020 (Used by permission)