By ALEC ETHEREDGE | Sports Editor 

OAKVILLE – It wasn’t an overall state championship year for the Briarwood Christian Lions cross country teams, but the boys and girls did end up with three runners inside the top three, including a state champion, when they traveled to Oakville on Saturday, Nov. 10, for the 2018 Class 5A State Championship meet.

Sophomore boys’ runner Trent Malloy was the highlight of the day thanks to his Class 5A individual championship earned thanks to an exhilarating finish.

Malloy was able to edge out Faith Academy’s Myles Stoots by 4.45 seconds to claim the 2018 title with a time of 15:52.35, which helped the Lions get an overall team finish of sixth in the boys standings.

The girls race also featured some excitement thanks to a couple of young runner with bright futures who have impressed throughout the cross country season.

Eighth graders Cady McPhail and Chloe Finocchiaro finished in second and third, respectively, to close out the season as podium finishers in the state championship meet.

McPhail finished the race in 19:29.22, while Finocchiaro was just a few seconds behind with a time of 19:33.44.

Those two performances alone were enough to propel the Lions to a strong second-place finish in the overall team standings.

Behind those two standout performances, however, Briarwood had a few other noteworthy top 20 finishers.

Sophomore Adrienne Goolsby was able to finish in 12th place thanks to a time of 20:25.24, while senior Lauren Musachia closed out her career with a finish of 16th thanks to her time of 20:33.98.

The Briarwood boys didn’t end up with another runner inside the top 50, and if they had, their outcome could have been a lot higher in the team standings, but they did get some consistency from 51st to 60th.

Patrick Hnizdill, Sam Candler, Luke Thompson, Jay Greene and Joseph Bell all finished somewhere in that vicinity to close out the 2018 season for the Lions.

Of those finishers, Briarwood will lose just two seniors moving into the 2019 season, which sets the Lions up for another strong run at a championship in the near future.