Depth and the race of her life by freshman Mandy Pixton led Box Elder to the 3A girls title while the Jones twins paced Ben Lomond to the 3A boys crown at the state cross country championships Wednesday at Sugarhouse Park.
Both team races were close, the Box Elder girls finishing with 71 points to 87 points for runner-up Judge Memorial and Ben Lomond winning a three-team race with Ogden and Judge Memorial in the boys' competition. The Scots had 50 points to Ogden's 63 and Judge's 65.
For Box Elder, the key was staying close to the leaders - that and the strong performance of Pixton, who was the first Bee to cross the finish line, in seventh place.
"She's never finished better than third on the team for us and she finished No. 1 today," Box Elder Coach Jim Fuller said of Pixton's effort.
"It's been a team effort all year long. We've worked very hard," he said of the Bees, who moved from 4A to 3A this year.
Pixton had a lot of support. Just behind her in eighth place was teammate Lori Hills. Mandi Sybrowsky was 16th with the other two scorers being Melissa Anderson in 19th and Melissa Maez in 21st. Tonya Stokes, 23rd, and Carrie Ann King, 29th, completed the team.
Springville, which finished third with 100 points, had the individual winner, Heather Witney. She was in the lead group of four - Chelsea Deakins (Judge), Naomi Nielsen (Mountain Crest) and Nicky Wangsgard (Ogden) being the other three - most of the race until breaking away at the end to win in a time of 18:46 over the 3.1-mile course.
"I just figured I'm almost done. This is my last race of the season. I might as well give it my all," Witney said. Deakins took second, Nielsen third and Wangsgard fourth.
Ben Lomond needed the 1-2 finish of Warren and Chris Jones to hold off Judge and Ogden.
"It looked pretty bleak after the first mile. Judge went out so fast," said Ben Lomond Coach Dan Dean, who got his first title after starting as coach for the Scots 14 years ago. The Jones boys took command early and ran away from the others, but Judge Memorial looked like the team to beat early as they had four runners in the top 10.
But then Ogden made its move, and it was a strong one, with four runners - Josh Sorensen, Spencer Castle, Paul Yoachum and Brek Grover - striding their way into the top 10 by the finish and the fifth, Lindsay Curtis, making it close by finishing 35th.
Dean figured Judge Memorial was the team to beat because of its depth, and though the Bulldogs faltered some after the first mile, they still placed four runners (Mark Ellison, 3rd; Ted Hansen, 11th; Danny Nowicki, 14th; Brian Duberow, 15th) in the top 15.
"I figured we had to beat one of the top four Judge kids with my third runner, and we did," Dean said. Shane Strebel did that by finishing 10th. Char Smith also helped push Judge back by taking fifth. The other scorer for Box Elder was Jacob Buist, who took 19th. The other two Ben Lomond runners, Tyler Kunzler and Nate Pohlman, finished 25th and 27th, respectively.
The Jones boys ran by themselves, finishing far ahead, with Warren sprinting past Chris near the end to win in 15:04 with Chris clocking 15:08.9. Ellison of Judge was third in 15:44.9.