Lady Bulldogs headed for state

By Staff
Mike Self FCT Sports Editor
The Belgreen girls cross country team finished third at the Section 4 meet on Saturday in Hamilton, qualifying for the 1A/2A state meet in the school's inaugural year of competition.
The top three teams from each section advance to the state meet, and Belgreen finished tied with Speake for third place with 70 points. Points are awarded to each team based on how their top five runners finish.
In the event of a tie, the time of each team's sixth-best finisher determines the winner. Belgreen's sixth-best runner was Kelly Dobbs, who finished 23rd overall with a time of 28:56.27. Speake only had five runners competing in the meet, so the Lady Bulldogs earned the third and final berth in the state meet.
Saturday marked the first time this season that Belgreen finished ahead of Speake in a meet.
"We've been chasing them all year, and we finally caught them," Billingham said. "We reached our goal of qualifying for state. Now it's time to look ahead."
Senior Casey Guinn paced the Lady Bulldogs on Saturday, finishing seventh overall with a time of 22:53.58. Fellow senior Mary Stutts finished 12th with a time of 24:01.12.
Martha Billingham came in 15th at 25:27, and Rosalyn Hargett was 16th at 25:29.05. Deborah Billingham finished 20th overall with a time of 26:08.56.
Belgreen's official team time was 2 hours, 4 minutes. Falkville placed first in the meet with a time of 1 hour, 52 minutes, 42.76 seconds, and Hatton was second with a time of 1 hour, 57 minutes, 18.88 seconds.
Hatton's Emily Rutherford was the overall individual winner with a time of 20:51.63.
The Class 1A/2A state cross country meet will be held on Saturday at Jesse Owens Park in Moulton.