Furst has shot at state

Mountain Home freshman cross country runner Jessica Furst finished sixth at last Thursday's District III 4A cross country meet at Desert Canyon Golf Course in Mountain Home.

With her effort, she qualified individually for the State 4A Cross Country Meet to be run at Hellsgate State Park in Lewiston Saturday.

Mountain Home Tiger Cross Country coach Doug Root expects Jessica to do well at state.

"I thoroughly expect that she can place in the top 10 at the state meet. We've run against Century and Jerome, which are two of the powers out of the east a couple times this season, and there's one girl from Jerome that beat her fairly consistently.

"I don't know who's coming from the northern part of the state, except for the ones that came down for the Bob Firman. Jessica did not run against them there, because she ran in the freshman race, but just comparing her times with some of the ones from the girls up north, she'd be very competitive with them, so I would really think that she could place in the top 10 at the state meet this week."

Mountain Home did not field a complete team for the girls race, which was won by Bishop Kelly. Skyview, Emmett and Middleton rounded out the top four teams.

Jessica Furst's time was 21:19, which placed her sixth out of 49 runners. Jessi Cameron ran a 24:13, which placed her at number 30 to cross the finish line.

Jennica Quintal set a new personal best with her time of 25:05. Kelci Robinson ran a 27:18. Courtney Ashford, Cindy Blacklock and Sarah Hyde all ran in the JV race.

Ashford ran a 29:25, and Blacklock and Hyde finished with a 32:56.

Matt Bernyk led the Mountain Home boys with a time of 20:46, good for a 41 out of 55 finishers. Charlie Blacklock's 21:05 put him two back of Bernyk. Nico Pinque ran a 22:21 (48), Garrett Wood ran a 22:55 (50), Mason Stevens a 23:31 (51) and Brett Kohring a 23:40 (52).

"We didn't run as well at district as we did at the Mountain Home Invitational, but the kids still ran good races and were competitive," said Coach Root. "It's still very, very hard for freshmen and sophomores to compete primarily against juniors and seniors, but I was pleased with the way they did try to represent Mountain Home and they did a good job."