This year’s 2026 Section VI cross country has come and gone and with it came an incredibly tight finish in the Class B girls 5,000-meter run between two Greater Niagara area runners.
It came down to a difference of four seconds as Niagara Wheatfield’s Teaghan Brady edged out Starpoint’s Meghan Zugelder with a time of 19:20.55, as compared to Zugelder’s 19:24.27.
The win helped Brady and her teammates capture the program’s second consecutive Section VI title. Brady and Zugelder were not the only high finishers on the day as the area accounted for 13 top-10 individual finishers.
The highest finishing area team was the Falcons but there were also four other teams to finish in the top-five in the different races.
The highest finisher in the Class A boys 5,000-meter race was Lockport’s Noah Moran with a seventh-place finish in a time of 16:29.97. In the Class A girls’ 5,000 race, it was another Lockport Lion who finished with the highest position as Avery Farrell finished in eighth with a time of 19:36.33.
The Class B boys race saw another local runner finish in eighth, with Lewiston-Porter’s Riley Schmitt taking the spot with a time of 16:57.18. He helped his team finish the competition in third place with 123 points, trailing only Grand Island in second and the winners Hamburg, which had 32 points.
Newfane’s Eden Hillman paced the local runners in the Class C girls race with a sixth-place finish and a time of 19:39.49. In the Class D boys race Barker’s Peyton Wagner finished in seventh with a time of 17:29.85.
He was one of two Barker boys runners to finish in the top ten, alongside junior Grayson Prynn, who finished in tenth with a time of 17:37.90. Those performances helped the Bulldogs finish the day in third, with 53 points.
On the girls side of the Class D race, Wilson’s Hayden Barlow finished in sixth-place with a time of 20:59.40, coming in just ahead of Barker’s Hannah Monaco, who had a time of 21:01.18.