Yared fuels Pine Crest at regional
Pine Crest’s Tsion Yared stole the show at the Class 2A regionals as the star-studded junior defended her title by finishing in 17 minutes and 49 seconds to lead her squad to a seventh-straight regional championship on Saturday in Winter Haven.
“She’s about as solid as it gets to be honest. She’s having a great year, and the additional workload she has taken on during training has really helped her elevate her game,” said coach Paul Baur.
Yared improved upon her time of 18:54.44 last year.
Teammate Emily Faulhaber finished right behind Yared in 18:07.30.
The Pine Crest girls team finished with a 1:34:49 overall time and edged out Rockledge and Titusville for the victory.
“It was a great collective effort from all of our great runners. It really showed how close of a team we are and how each and every one of them pushes and encourages each other to get better,” Baur said.
In the Class 4A regionals, the Spanish River Sharks dominated the competition for the second straight year as both their boys and girls team took home first-place hardware.
Juniors Rylee Pustilnik and Lillian Clarkson fueled the girls squad to victory as they finished in 18:07.70 and 18.38.39 respectively.
The girls team ended with a 1:41:23.31 overall time and managed to surge past Park Vista’s 1:44.18.12 second-place finishing time. Stoneman Douglas rounded out the top three by finishing in 1:44:14.29.
On the boys side, despite not having a top-three finisher, Spanish River ended with a 1:25:21.83 overall time to push past Palm Beach Central, who finished in 1:26:41.97. Senior William Noonan was the anchor for the Sharks as he finished with a team-best 16:21.27 time.