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Fresh from victories in the Eastern Plains Conference meet last weekend, the Washington High School girls and boys cross country teams will compete in Saturday’s 2A East regional at the Lenoir County Fairgrounds.

Senior Isaac Campbell won the 5K race in 18:50 to take conference runner of the year honors.

“I feel like this is four years of work paying off,” Campbell said. “I don’t really try to pace myself, I just take off and go. I’ll run the same way Saturday and hopefully, we will make it to state as well.”

The top three boys teams qualify along with the top two girls teams. There are individual spots available in the state meet for runners whose teams don’t qualify.

Teammates Braden Smithwick (19:01 and Luke Brown (19:19) finished second and third. Micah Whitley was sixth in 21:32 and Hunter Moore took seventh in 20:35 to earn All-Conference honors.

The girls took eight of the top 10 spots in their meet. Hailey Broadwell (23:49) was second followed by Reagan Fisher (23:50), Jamie Perez (23:51) and Jessica Conner (24:20) in fifth place. Avery Thomas, Sary Acosta, Angelee Huguero and Olivia Paszt were sixth through ninth.

“I am very proud of my team for competing when it counted,” coach Dawn Landen said. “We’ve worked on running together as a pack and both teams’ top five runners were less than two minutes apart. Seven ran personal best times and we hope to see the same at the regional meet.”

The top seven girls will compete Saturday, while the boys lineup is still incomplete.

Northside’s Keanu Dugan won the Coastal Plains Conference boys 1A race at Pamlico County to earn runner of the year honors and will compete on the same course at Saturday’s regional. Both Panthers teams finished third.

Dugin covered the 5K route in 17:25. Andrew Harding (19:34) and Mason Newman (19:42) finished 10^th and 11^th to also earn All-Conference honors.

“Keanu beat his personal best time by 17 seconds at the conference meet and we hope he does it again this weekend,” coach Kevin Braddy said. “He has trained hard to lower his time and he is a great role model for our younger runners.”

Kiele Scott led the girls with a third place finish (22:59) to make All-Conference, while Braddy was named Coach of the Year.

Bryson Proctor, Brent Holland, Arie DeHoog and Zane Brooks join Dugan, Harding and Newman at the regional meet.

Lauren Rouse, Anna Barrett, Leah Cahoon and Emma Boyd will join Scott on the girls squad.