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It's not quite a repeat, but it's still pretty darn good. The Bishop McGuinness girls cross country team followed last year's state title by taking fourth at Saturday's 1-A championship race at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons.

"Right now it's kind of hard for them, but all in all it's been a great year," Bishop head coach Robert Youtz said.

"They're disappointed, but I think it shows where the program has gone, where the expectations are and what we'll be happy with."

Senior Meredith Bennett finished fourth at 20:28 to take All-State honors for a fourth straight year, but the Villains times were off across the board as most of them were still recovering from a bout of the flu.

"We were getting healthy, we just kind of ran out of time," Youtz said. "It was just one of those days where things didn't click, and it's unfortunate that the state meet is where it happened."

The Villain boys were a surprising seventh place finisher despite missing their No. 3 runner to injury. Freshman Anthony Conforti stepped in admirably to complement Preston Kahn (17:59, 22nd), Robert Tikkanen (18:21, 40th) and Austin Triee (18:23, 41st). "A lot of guys stepped up," Youtz said. "They weren't their best times, but they were pretty darn close."

Northwest Guilford's Chelsea Hollingsworth and Alyssa Torres just missed All-State honors, coming in 16th and 19th, respectively in the 4-A race.

Hollingsworth, a senior, clocked in at 19:11 with Torres 11 seconds behind as Northwest surpassed expectations by finishing fifth.

The Viking boys also made a splash with a seventh place finish, paced by senior Andrew Shields' 15h-place 16:37 and Gerald Bienhoff's 41st-place 17:14.

"We didn't get a lot of hooting and hollering as far as coaches' predictions, but we were a pretty good team," Northwest head coach Paul Egleston said.

"This was a really good finish for us."

Page took 14th on the girls side, led by freshman Austin Vass in 24th place at 19:31. Grimsley's Tess Wynn, the Metro 4-A champion, finished 44th as an individual qualifier at 20:05, and the Whirlies' Naethan Burch finished 37th in the 4-A boys race at 17:11.

Northern Guilford's girls, making their first appearance in the state meet, took 11th place in the 3-A race, highlighted by junior Erin McGirk in seventh at 20:00 and freshman Sara Svehla in 25th at 20:36.

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller@news-record.com