CARROLLTON — The Chestatee boys fan to their second straight Class 4A state cross country championship on Friday.
Garrett Grater, who finished No. 2 overall, and Gavin Grater paced the War Eagles to edge Marist, 38-46, at the state meet course in Carrollton.
Marist gave the War Eagles its best shot early on in the race, moving up halfway through the course. However, Chestatee's Noah Peters, who was way back early on, was able to move up and allow the War Eagles to pull away after the two-mile mark.
Garrett was the top War Eagle finisher with a 16:41.67 time. Gaven crossed with a time of 16:53.55.
Meanwhile, Aaron Retana (17:00.97), Javier Rebollar (17:09.31 8), Noah Peters (17:48.43), Eli Chaffin (18:49.54) and Nathan Ibarra (20:06.20) helped the War Eagles to complete the state title run.
Jefferson finished third in the state finals with Matthew Schroeder taking fifth overall (16:58.28).
Flowery Branch's Jonathan Gonzalez finished 18th overall (17:51.05) as the Falcons finished fifth in the state meet.
In the boys Class 3A meet, Stephen Clark of West Hall finished third in the indivdiual race with a 16:51.37 time. Clark was the only area runner to crack the top 15.
In the team event, Cherokee Bluff finished fifth, North Hall seventh, East Jackson ninth, Dawson County 11th, and Lumpkin County was 12th. The Westminster boys placed the top four runners and the ninth place finisher to amass a miniscule 19 points to win the team title.
In the Class 3A girls meet, the North Hall girls finished fifth overall with 118 points behind solid showings from a pair of freshmen in Clodagh O’Bryant, who took fourth, and Harleigh Smith , who was fifth.
Adison Myers of Cherokee Bluff finished seventh while Nealeigh Broadwell of White County was ninth to give Region 7-3A four runners in the top 10.
White County (132 points) finished sixth, Cherokee Bluff (149) seventh, and Lumpkin County (286) was eighth in the team standings.Westminster ran away with the girls team title with just 43 points
