The postseason begins for all of the MHSAA area cross-country teams Wednesday when region meets take place at Choctaw Trails in Clinton.

The Region 3-2A races involving teams from Loyd Star, Enterprise and West Lincoln begins at 2 p.m. with the girls’ race. The boys’ race begins at 2:35 p.m. The Region 3-3A race will run at the same time and features runners from Wesson.

The Region 3-5A race that includes Brookhaven High School begins at 3:10 p.m., with the girls’ and boys’ competitions beginning at 3:45 p.m. Region 6-4A that includes Lawrence County will run at the same time.

The Jackson Public Schools Challenger Series on Oct. 18 was the last regular-season meet for most area schools. Run at Choctaw Trails, the race was the final in a season-long series of races that were hosted by JPS.

In the girls’ race, Gracie Gray of Brookhaven High took second place with a time of 20 minutes, 40 seconds. Ellie Slay (21:34, fourth place), Emmaline Wolfe (22:08, seventh place), Abby Roberts (22:28, 11th place), Carley Craig (22:34, 12th place) Quinn Boerner (23:36, 17th place) and Lily Gray (24:20, 19th place) were all top finishers for the Lady Panthers.

Kara Beth Addison (25:17) and Ashland Watts (25:19) were top finishers for West Lincoln.

Brookhaven finished first out of 12 schools in the team competition. West Lincoln finished in fifth place.

Jacob Britt of BHS finished first in the boys’ race with a time of 17:06. Sam Arnold (17:38), Jake Thompson (17:52) and Grayson Childress (18:30) finished in third, fifth, and ninth places, respectively.

West Lincoln runners Tiler Castillo (18:00) and Jonathan Mathis (18:11) had a big meet, as they finished in sixth and eighth places, respectively. West Lincoln finished third in the team competition.

Story by Cliff Furr