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The Mt. Edgecumbe Braves cross country team is headed to Palmer.
The Braves managed a third place finish at the Region V championship meet in Juneau Saturday and advanced to the state meet, set for Oct. 3 at the Mike Janecek Trails.
It is the second straight year the Braves have qualified for the state championships and they did it by a very slim margin.
Sitka won the 3A boys race with 60 points and Craig was second with 77. Mt. Edgecumbe and Skagway, battling for the third and final Southeast berth at the state meet, tied at 89, forcing race officials to use a tiebreaker.
Cross country scores are based on the places of a team's top five finishers. But when the scores were tallied Saturday, Skagway and Mt. Edgecumbe were even, so race officials went to each team's sixth-place finisher.
Skagway did not have a sixth runner, while Jordan Johnson (Kotlik), the Braves sixth finisher, had finished 27th for Edgecumbe in a time of 20:22. Edgecumbe got the nod and will compete for another week.
"Every single position is going to make the difference,'' Edgecumbe coach Josh Arnold said. "If those boys let one more runner slip through our season would be over. Those boys fought to the very last runner."
On a rainy and cold day in Juneau, the Braves were led by Curtis Turner (Anchorage), who finished 13th in a time of 19:03. Turner was followed closed by his brother Brian (Anchorage) who took 14th place in a time of 19:26 and Byron Phillips (Anchorage), who took 15th for the Braves, coming home in 19:31.
Henry Horner (Kobuk) had a solid race, finishing 22nd in 19:56, while Ian Sia (Bethel) rounded out the Braves' top five with a 25th-place finish in 20:12.
Jordan Johnson was followed by Terry Rogers (Dillingham), who was 30th in 20:38.
Arnold said he thinks his runners can shave valuable seconds off their times next Saturday when they toe the starting alongside the best 3A runners in the state.
The Mt. Edgecumbe Lady Braves' 2009 season came to end Saturday in Juneau. The Lady Braves finished 6th in the 3A race and did not advance to the state meet.
Willaby Shuster, a senior from Kotzebue, was the top finisher for the Lady Braves, finishing 21st in a time of 24:33. Lainey Beaver (Kotzebue) was 23rd in a time of 24:25, Tayesia Nick was 30th in 25:28, Pauline Shellabarger (Kiana) was 32nd in 25:41, Brandi Hale (Hooper Bay) took 33rd in 25:43, Clara McConnell (Kotzebue) took 40th place in 26:26 and Nicole Pingayak (Chevak) was 42nd in 26:36 to round out Edgecumbe's top seven.
Beaver, Pingayak and Shellabarger, a trio of four-year seniors, will be sorely missed in 2010, Arnold said.
The Mt. Edgecumbe coach described them as a ``steady, hard-working runners.''
Nick and Shuster, both seniors, were also competing in their final race for the Lady Braves.
The Region V 3A girls race was on by Sitka with 37 points. Skagway (79), Craig (90), Haines (122) and Wrangell (125) were the top five teams. Yakutat (146) and Klawock (148), were 7th and 8th, respectively.