NEL captures cross-country titles

By By Ryan Satcher / staff writer
Oct. 3, 2004
Northeast Lauderdale swept through the 2004 Northeast Lauderdale Cross-Country Invitational with a win in the girls' varsity meet and a victory in the boys' varsity meet at Northeast Park on Saturday morning.
Northeast also took first in the girls' junior varsity run and finished second in the JV boys' race.
"Overall, it turned out pretty good," said Northeast coach James Matthews. "The times were a little slower but it's a rougher course because there are hills and it's uneven. It's a good tune up. We had a race last week and didn't do very well but we ran very well this week. It's looking good for down the road."
The Lady Trojans finished with 38 points to hold off second place Wayne County which finished with 56 points. West Lauderdale rounded out the top three with 67 points.
"Our varsity girls ran really well especially considering a couple of them were coming off being sick," said Matthews. "We were missing our number four runner. The rest of them had to step up big to win this meet."
The Trojans took first place in the varsity boys' meet with 40 points while Columbus finished second with 85 points and Meridian finished third with 88 points.
"The varsity boys really stepped up a lot," said Matthews. "The times were not as fast but they pushed through and picked up the places they needed. We did pretty good."
In the girls' varsity meet, Wayne County's Lauren Pittman finished first with a time of 17:55 and teammate Deanna Powe was close behind at 18:02 to take second.
Northeast's Whitney Ward finished third in 18:37 and teammate Bianca McDonald took fourth place.
The Lady Trojans also had their other three runners in the top 15. Yolanda Truman finished sixth, Carlisha Barfield took 12th and Brittany Bostic finished 15th.
Sarah Hammes represented Meridian High with a sixth place finished and teammate Anna Allred finished 13th.
Seventh place went to Yolanda Truman of Newton County and West Lauderdale's Alexa Flaskcamp finished eighth. Columbus' Chandra Oglen and Brianna Miles of Wayne County rounded out the top 10 finishers.
In the boys' varsity meet, Northeast's Antonio Serton took first place overall with an 18:09 while Deshum Dudley (18:12) of Meridian and Newton County's Brandon Labue (18:33) rounded out the top three.
Brach Barham finished fourth for the Trojans while Owen Lide took seventh, Matthew Snyder finished 15th and Hendrick Jefferson finished 16th.
Corey Sharpe of Philadelphia finished fifth while Lawrence County's Blake Rodriguez took sixth. Jay Stoddard and West Lauderdale teammate Ryan Hill finished eight and ninth and Columbus' Greg Randle rounded out the top 10 finishers.
New Hope's Justin Painter finished first in the junior varsity boys' race while Northeast's Tierra Amerson won the JV girls' race.
The meet turned out to be a success with 12 teams participating this year.
"The meet ran very well," said Matthews. "This was our third year and probably the best it has run off. It went very smooth. Overall, it went great and it's getting better every year."