District champion Burnaby Central gave a good account of itself at the B.C. high school cross-country championships in Westbank last Saturday.
The Wildcat women placed a respectable 16th in overall team placing, while the Central boys finished in 24th position just ahead of 27th-place finishing New Westminster in the 30-team field.
District individual girls' champion Sophia Stevenson finished in 71st position, 12 places behind Central teammate Reesa Wright, who ran the 4.8-kilometre Telemark ski trail in a time of 18:38.25.
Ashley Windsor of Walnut Grove won the race with a 16:40.51 clocking. Emmy Sim of Salmon Arm and Regan Yee of Hazelton, both running without team support, finished in second and third place, respectively.
Jamal Reta of Byrne Creek was the top Burnaby/New Westminster finisher in the boys' 6.5km race, placing 61st overall in a time of 26:18.60.
Lehm Maguire of Claremont proved the boys' individual champion, beating runners-up Christian Gravel of St. George's and Joel Deshiffart of Nanaimo Christian to the tape by more 10 seconds in a winning time of 23:36.61.
Santiago Ward led Central with a 145th place finish. Central teammates Kaz Yamamura and Ryan Hirakida were 162nd and 176th, respectively, while Sameer Aslami of Byrne Creek also placed in the top 200.
John Ragone and Diego Martinez also scored points for Central in the team competition.
New Westminster's Paul Yout, Carson Croy, Ethan Strome, Grady Pinvidic and Colin Donahoe all finished within a minute apart, averaging 29:29 minutes for New West's team.
Oak Bay edged defending two-time champion St. George's to reclaim the provincial boys' team title it owned from 2006 to 2009.
In girls' aggregate standings, West Point Grey held on to the provincial banner it won last year, eking out a three-point win over Oak Bay, which has won eight of the last 12 titles since 1999.
Central also got scoring finishes from Sara Pomponio, Angela Preissl and Natasha Louie.
Zoe Loewen and Natasha Lazecki of New West and Pomponio placed among the top-150 runners.
Gabby Napoleone, Amanda Zacharuk and Kelsey Lonergan also finished with team points for the Hyacks.
Virginia Ukpabi of Burnaby North was the highest-finishing individual runner from the BurWest, placing 203rd.
