Blevins leads Mercer with 9th place finish; Burgin finishes 12th

Daarik Gray

Herald Staff

sports@harrodsburgherald.com

Mercer County eighth-grader Haley Blevins moved up 52 spots from a year ago, as she finished 9th in this year’s Class AA State Cross-Country Meet at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington Saturday morning.

Blevins, who finished 61st as a seventh-grader last year, finished the 3.1 mile race with a time of 19:23.54, nearly three minutes better than her time of 22:04.23 last fall.

“Haley has improved quite a bit over the past year,” said Mercer County Head Coach David Teets. “She has done really well this year. She is really just a true runner.”

Although Blevins was the brightest spot for the Lady Titans, Teets said the rest of his team, which finished 17th overall, really impressed him as well.

“Our girls had a great effort today. Four of the seven got their best times today, so that is great,”said Teets.

Hailey Stinnett had the second fastest time for Mercer County, finishing with a time of 21:55.05.

Now Teets said it is up to the team to make sure they improve over the next several months so that they can come back with an even better performance next fall.

“I am going to encourage them to run track in the spring. I’d like to see them run in some 5K’s in the next year, because there is plenty of them around here,” said Teets. “But the overall goal is to teach them that hard work pays off. They did great and I am proud of them.”

Trevar Lay led the way for the Burgin boy’s cross-country team as they finished 12th out of 27 teams at the Class A State Meet Saturday morning. 

Lay, who finished with a time of 17:45.72, placed 47th overall out of 222 runners. Wesley Qualls wasn’t far behind as he finished 52nd with a time of 17:54.31.

 The Bulldogs return all but one runner, senior Cooper Shearer, next year. 

Pick up a copy of the Harrodsburg Herald or subscribe to our online edition for complete results from the KHSAA State Cross-Country Meet.