Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Rogers girls, Bentonville boys claim titles
ROGERS — More than five girls were needed to determine a 6A-West Conference cross country champion Tuesday afternoon.
Rogers High and Bentonville High finished the meet with 29 points, so a tiebreaker was needed to determine the league champion. Rogers then took the upper hand as its sixth runner, Amy Lawrence, finished in 16th place while Bentonville’s sixth runner, Madeline Marks, finished 21st.
“It was a crazy, close race,” Rogers coach Carlton Efurd said. “That’s why I tell those sixth and seventh runners they have to finish. You can’t just rely on the top five runners. Those sixth and seventh runners have a chance to score, and they did it.”
Anna Jeffcoat, Ali Nachital and Hailey Day gave the Lady Mounties a one-two-four finish, but they needed a little more help after Bentonville had all five runners place in the top eight, led by Lainey Quandt’s third-place finish. Freshman Kate Nachtigal did her part when she gave Rogers a ninth-place finish, while junior Jamison Maass forced the tie when she finished 13th.
Moments later, the tie was broken when Lawrence crossed the finish line in a time of 20 minutes, 43.8 seconds, about 11 seconds ahead of Marks. Kaitlyn Ruiz gave the Lady Mounties some insurance with a 20th-place finish.
“When Kate was there right with Bentonville’s fifth girl, I thought that was the difference,” Efurd said. “I was afraid that was going to be the difference in us not winning, then Jamison had a good race to keep us in it.”
Jeffcoat covered the 5,000 meters in 18:44.5 to earn the individual title. It was a personal-best for the Rogers senior and the state’s third-fastest time over that distance this fall.
Ali Nachtigal, last year’s state 7A individual champion, took second with 18:50, while Quandt was third at 19:04.6.
“My coach told me it was my senior year as I was going around the turn,” Jeffcoat said. “And I wanted to make this race count. I wanted to go ahead and do this. I just happened to go with it, and it worked out. Getting a PR was good, too.”
A tiebreaker wasn’t needed to determine a boys champion, but the final results were almost as close. Bentonville earned its second consecutive title as the Tigers edged Fayetteville by a 32-34 margin.
Fayetteville, behind senior Camren Fischer, had three runners finish in the top five, but Bentonville sneaked past the Bulldogs when all five Tiger runners finished in the top 10 while Fayetteville’s fourth and fifth runners finished 12th and 13th, respectively.
“It’s always nice to win a conference championship,” Bentonville coach Mike Power said. “Fayetteville has a very strong frontrunner with Cam, who is top 10 or top 12 in the nation. They have some other good runners — young runners — and they’re very hungry.
“I’m glad we got on top, and in 10 days we’ll go headto-head again. The two Mayberry twins had a great competition, and our fifth man — Dylan Mayberry — was the runner of the day. It always comes down to the fifth man in a cross-country competition.”
Fischer won the individual title for the third straight year, with his competition coming from a clock and history. The senior attempted to break the course record of 15:20 set by Rogers’ Cameron Efurd 10 years ago and fell less than a second short, finishing in 15:20.9.
“I went out really fast in the first mile, and I think it was 4:40,” Fischer said. “The pacing for a 15:20 was 4:56, so it was a little fast mile. It might have played a factor, but overall I can’t complain.”