First Baptist Christian School junior Caleb Earhart captured his second-consecutive state title, this one by two-hundredths of a second over Georgetown’s Nick Ulmer, helping the Eagles take home the cross-country state championship. The event was held Tuesday at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches.

Earhart finished the three-mile race in 17:58.66, while Ulmer was done in 17:58.68.

Earhart talked about the race.

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“I was in the lead at about the two-mile mark and then he came and past me right after the two,” Earhart said. “Then I drafted off him until we got to the track. When we got to the track, it was head-and-head until we got to about 100 meters. Then I barely won.”

Earhart said he didn’t know if he had won after he crossed the finish line.

“I could see out of my peripheral vision I was a head a little, but I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t exactly 100 percent,” he said.

The Eagles placed five runners in the top 15, while winning the team competition with 37 points. Elizabeth was second with 54 points, followed by Georgetown (59) in the eight-team field.

First Baptist’s Christian McCabe (18:59) and Taylor Brown (19:03) were fifth and sixth respectively. Daniel Benasco (19:27) took 10th and Anthony Benasco (20:25) finished 15th.

Also for First Baptist, Craig Schayot (21:02) was 19th, while Storm Davis (21:50) was 27th among the 56 participants.

First Baptist Cross Country coach Craig Earhart said he’s extremely excited about the title.

“The boys work really hard all year,” Earhart said. “They were state-runner up last year, so this year was just a year to really get it going. We had two-new runners (Anthony Benasco and Daniel Benasco) on our team this year that really helped out. Just to get four in the top 10 was really exciting for all of us.”

In class 4A, Salmen had two runners, but did not qualify for team honors

St. Michael won the event with 55 points.

Ruston (62) was runner-up, followed by Vandebilt Catholic (133), Beau Chene (151) and Teurlings Catholic (174) rounded out the top five of the 20-team field.

Individually, Haughton’s Mitchell Landry captured the event in 16:26, while St. Michael’s Grand Dietrich (17:09) was runner-up.

Salmen’s top finisher was Nicholas Lowe (20:54), who was 84th among the 149 runners. Also for the Spartans, Alan Cox (22:59) took 124th.

In Class 2A, Episcopal won the title with 26 points.

St. Thomas Aquinas (101) was second, followed by Menard (119), Newman (126) and University Lab (126) in the 21-team field.

Pope John Paul (333) took 12th.

Northlake Christian School also participated, but did not qualify for team honors.

Runnels’ Matthew Rice captured the individual event in 16:17. Episcopal’s Jared Chapman (16:31) was second with 149 runners.

The top local runner was PJP’s Drew Harding (19:21), who took 51st. Also for the Jaguars, Ryan Cadard (19:26), was 54th, Mitch Bogran (19:28), 56th and Richard Darouse (21:01), 88th. Brandon Schroder (22:09) and John Binder (22:11) were 100th and 101st respectively, while Robert Turner (22:34) took 106th.

For Northlake Christian, Kyle Hamer (20:43) was 83rd, while Greyson Welch (23:27) took 125th, Jared Haley (27:01) got 145th.