By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor

County cross country runners gather at several sites today for the district meets, the first step toward a potential spot at the state meet in Dade City in two weeks.

Four local squads will compete at Harmony today at 9 a.m. for the 3A-7 meet. Liberty, Celebration, St. Cloud and the Longhorns will compete against 18 other schools.

Osceola, Gateway and Poinciana travel to Palm Bay Regional Park today. Osceola and Gateway compete at the 4A-2 district meet which begins at 8 a.m. Poinciana will run in the 2A-4 race, which gets under way at 9:30 a.m.

The top six teams and top 15 individuals will move on to the regional races next week.

St. Cloud’s boys, the Orange Belt Conference champions Oct. 27 on the Harmony course, are projected to win the district championship, said Coach Kevin Harkema.

“The boys are seeded first, but it should be close between us, Oviedo, Martin County and Okeechobee,” Harkema said. “Their teams are running real well lately.”

St. Cloud’s Bailey Morgan, Matt Cole, Carlos Perez, Antonio Montalvo and Eric Ratliff all placed among the top 11 at the OBC meet.

Harkema expects his girls team to advance to regionals as well. The Lady Bulldogs were the surprise OBC champions last week, knocking off favored Harmony.

“If the girls run with confidence again we could do really well and maybe get a trophy,” Harkema said. “We’re really looking forward to this race.”

Ashlyn Stadtlander, Anaya Reid and Katelyn Stadtlander finished 1-2-3 at the conference meet.

Harmony girls coach Debra Schweiger said the Lady Longhorns are determined to atone for their disappointing run at the conference meet.

“The girls should finish in the top three at districts,” she said. “They are pretty well motivated going into this week because of losing OBCs, so I think they will perform well.”

The Lady Longhorns are led by former OBC champions Sam Travis and Chelsea Conner along with Brittany Conner and Kylie Koral, who all placed among the top seven at the conference race.

Celebration’s Quincy O’Connor, the boys OBC champion, is a favorite to win the district championship.

The regional meets are next Saturday at Stuart South Fork (3A-4), DeLand (4A-1) and Titusville Astronaut (2A-2).