El Dorado closed out the cross country regular season at the Lake Hamilton Invitational Saturday in Hot Springs. It was one of the bigger meets of the season and Coach John Koonce hopes it will help prepare his runners for the upcoming conference and state meets.
The 5A South Conference Meet will be held Oct. 26 at Hot Springs.
“We are now turning our eyes towards conference and state. We held a few athletes out of the Lake Hamilton meet to be sure that they would be good to go for the last two meets of the season,” said Koonce. “We have a week and a half to prepare for conference, so it is very important for the kids to be locked in and focused at every practice.”
The Lady Wildcats’ Emma McGee finished 44th in the varsity girls race out of 178 runners. McGee ran a 21:52.00. El Dorado’s top varsity boys’ runner was Hunter Nutt, who was 199th out of 301 runners.
El Dorado’s junior high girls had four top-50 finishers out of a field of 198 runners. Clarabeth Black finished 31st followed by Carly Meadows (32nd), Corin Melear (40th) and Ainsley Colvin (47th). Eli Rodriguez led the junior high boys, placing 66th out of a field of 215 competitors. Jake Dilworth was 72nd.