First Baptist Christian School sophomore Caleb Earhart won the Boys’ Class C Cross Country State Championship Monday in Natchitoches, and fifth-grader Gabrielle Jennings won the girls race in 19:29, more than two minutes faster than her closest competitor.

Earhart finished the three-mile boys race in 18:26, 14 seconds, ahead of runner-up Michael Alphonse of Holy Rosary. The field consisted of more than 82 runners.

“It felt good. I was very nervous in the beginning, but during it, I felt real good,” Earhart said. “I was able to go out and do my race.”

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Earhart admitted that he did look behind him to see how far back the next competitor was.

First Baptist had three participants in the top 10. Taylor Brown (18:42) took third, and Christian McCabe (19:16) finished eighth.

In the team competition, First Baptist was runner-up with 58 points. Elizabeth (40) won the event among the seven teams that qualified for points.

Elizabeth’s Seth Anderson (18:45) tallied fourth, followed by Bayou’s Colton Stanley (18:45), Elizabeth’s Jordan Sutterfield (18:49) and Holy Rosary’s Thomas Beavers (19:08) was seventh. Elizabeth teammates Daniel Reed (19:17) and Arthur Myers (19:22) were ninth and 10th respectively.

First Baptist had two other finishers, including Craig Schayot (20:38), 21st, and Alec Gaudin (22:47), 37th.

Jennings finished ahead of Victoria Arnold (21:58) of Pleasant Hill in the field of 42.

She was the Lady Eagles’ only participant.

“I was really excited. I was like, ‘yes, this is it, I won,” Jennings said.

Jennings added that she wasn’t sure how far ahead she was.

“At the end, I felt like people were behind me,” Jennings said.

Jennings also said she didn’t look back during the competition.

Georgetown’s Destyne Canoe (22:11) took third, while Elizabeth’s Taylor Gates (23:34) was fourth and Georgetown’s Haley Landry (24:22) rounded out the top five.

The sixth and seventh places went to Elizabeth teammates Landie Maddox (24:37) and Payton Walker (24:50). Plainview’s Skylar Chenevert (24:58) was eighth, followed by Elizabeth’s Patience West (25:14), and Georgetown’s Danielle Collins (25:30) rounded out the top 10.

Elizabeth won the team portion with 25 points over Georgetown (31) in the two teams that were eligible to compete for team honors.

First Baptist coach Theresa Earhart talked about her excitement.

“I’m extremely proud, ecstatic beyond words seeing how hard they worked. It’s a new team that came together at the end of August, and to see how far they went,” Earhart said. “I’m just ecstatic to see that they came in with two firsts, a third and then a runner-up team.”