JACKSON – John Thomas Frank led the Eupora boys cross country team to to a fifth place finish at the MHSAA 2A state meet Monday by finishing second to win a silver medal. East Webster was 10th. Frank, a junior, covered the 5,000 meter (3.1 mile) Choctaw Trails course in 18:01.4, to finish behind William Fugate of Madison St. Joseph. Other runners for Eupora were Joseph Rollins, 32nd in 20:29.44; Woods Mitchell, 39th in 21:16.07; Walker Mitchell, 44th in 21:42.08; Chris Nicholson, 60th in 23:02.11; Cliff Jernigan, 68th in 23:35.86; and Alex Anderson, 80th in 29:55.2. East Webster was led by Dylon Tollison, who finished 27th with a time of 20:07.94. He was followed by Cooper Stidham 51st (22:16,62), Sam Brown 56th (22:34.92), Bradley Graves 62nd (23:11.58), Riley White 66th (23:30.62), Gabe Brown 69th (23:38.32) and Hayes Fason 78th (28.33,01). East Webster had a very young team with two sophomores, three freshman and two eighth graders. In the girls meet, East Webster was fifth and Eupora 11th. East Webster girls were led by Ali Azlin in 17th place with a clocking of 23:32.98. Reagan Plunkett was 20th (23:54.42), Cayden Gentry 27th (24:46.24), Alexa Handy 47th (26:25.94) and Hannah Gilbert 53rd (26:50.76). For Eupora, runners were Lillian Winter 29th (24:49.17), Artierria Hill 50th (26:41.93), Macie Manasco 52nd (26:47.48), Eliza Boatman 61st (27:58.73), Ava McCain 66th (28:54.75), Estra Herard 72nd (29:42.96) and Hallie Johnston 74th (30:25.67). St. Patrick won the boys and girls championship. Teams that qualified for the meet could enter up to seven runners, but only the first five counted town the team score.
