Ellis, Miller headed to state meet

Two Comanche runners have qualified for this week's state meet after finishing in the top five at the regional meet at Waurika last Saturday.

Landon Ellis came in second in the boys' 3A 5K race, finishing with a time of 17:00.35, while Jaylee Miller brought in a fifth-place finish for the girls with a time of 13:00.32 in the 3200-meter race.

"I thought Landon ran really well," said Jason Miller, head coach. "He finished really strong and had a great kick at the end. The guy that won it (Wyatt Vinson of Marietta with a time of 16:42.04), Landon's beaten him before."

He also thought his daughter Jaylee ran a great race as well.

"She did what she had to do to qualify for state," Miller said. "She's doing really good right now."

With only three runners, the Lady Indians could not qualify as a team. Ryleigh Woody, the only senior on either the boys or girls cross country teams, narrowly missed out on qualifying for state, finishing 30th with a time of 14:37.73, two spots out of qualifying.

Sarai Alvarez was 63rd with a time of 16:45.15.

"Sarai probably ran her best race of the year," Miller said. "I hate it for Ryleigh not making it her senior year. The last girl that qualified was two seconds in front of her, which means they were right there together."

Jacob Billingsley and Jaxson Billingsley finished second and third on the boys' team. Jacob was 52nd overall and Jaxon was 53rd with times of 21:27.53 and 21:30.01, respectively. Owen Bigford was 55th with a time of 21:58.73 and Austin James was 56th with a time of 22:08.12.

"All the boys but one had their best time of the year," Miller said. "We had two runners not show up. We still had enough to field a team, but we ended up in eighth and the top seven go to state."

Comanche finished with 178 points. Seventh place Washington had 154.