After coming off one of their better performances in the Yadkin Valley Conference cross country meet, the North Moore boys’ and girls’ teams followed it up with a strong showing in the 1-A Midwest Region meet Saturday at Kernersville’s Beeson Park.

The Lady Mustangs placed seventh overall in the field of 21 teams while the boys took the 11th spot out of 22 schools competing. The Midwest Regional is considered to be one of the toughest and deepest regionals at the 1-A level.

The top four teams qualify for the state 1-A meet coming up Saturday at Beeson Park.

Also the top five individual finishers that are not on one of the four qualifying teams are eligible to run in the state meet.

Both of the host Bishop McGuinness teams won their respective meets, with the girls tallying 37 points followed by Yadkin Valley Conference member Gray Stone with 82 points, Community School of Davidson 94 and East Wilkes 162. North Moore had 207 points, three points behind another fellow conference member South Stanly.

The Mustangs’ top finisher in the girls’ meet was freshman Lauren Deview, who ran the 5K course in 21:15, giving her 14th place overall. Deview finished one spot back for one of the five individual qualifiers. T

The individual winner for the girls’ meet was Community School of Davidson’s Malia Ellington, with a winning time of 19:18. Ellington beat last year’s winner Kristan Parris of Mt. Airy by 42 seconds.

Deview, who placed second in last week’s conference meet at Albemarle’s Chuck Morehead Park, finished ahead of Gray Stone’s Sarah Goodnight, who won the conference meet.

The other members that ran for North Moore girls’ team were senior Jourdan Wofford (finished 45th overall with a time of 23:43), freshman Kylie Bouplon (49th, 23:56), senior Miranda Freeman (59th, 24:52), senior Bethany Robbins (62nd, 25:01) and freshman Haley Davids (63rd, 25:02).

The Bishop McGuinness boys’ team totaled 44 points, followed by East Wilkes with 90 points, North Stokes 112 and Gray Stone 144. Bishop McGuinness’ Sam Williams won the boys’ meet with a time of 16:37 out of a field of 135 runners.

North Moore sophomore Tristan Mackey led his team with a 26th-place finish with a time of 18:23. Mackey was followed by teammates freshman Tyler Hunsucker (33rd, 18:43), senior Alex Landers (59th, 19:45), junior Austin Hunsucker (81st, 20:33), senior Luke Moore (88th, 20:51), senior Daniel Purvis (93rd, 21:09) and sophomore Tristan McDonald (108th, 21:59).

“It was an awesome season,” said North Moore coach Chris Coble. “We do lose 11 seniors that I will miss, but we have a ton of young talent coming back. So we have a lot to look forward to for next season.”