HOUSTON- After a banner season that wrapped up with the Bullard girl’s and boy’s teams running at the Region III Cross Country regionals held at Lone Star College’s, North Harris County campus.

The Lady Panthers improved on last year’s 14-place finish with ninth-place this past weekend.

Bailee Callens took 19th-place individually running a 12:38.5, and Kylee Nichols ran 13:22.4 to take 39th-place. Samantha Phillips finished in the top-50 with a time of 17:28 for 45th-place.

Other Lady Panthers running for Bullard were Sarah-Grace French, Rachel Horton, and Katy Shumate.

Spring Hill’s Amber Moore successfully defended her Class 3A girls title with a two-mile time of 11 minutes, 38.0 seconds. She held off runner-up Taeler Marshall of Huffman Hargrave (11:45.8).

This will be Moore’s third trip to the state meet, and accompanied by teammate Leslie Blevins, who placed ninth in 12:13.9.

Spring Hill’s girls team placed fifth overall with 157 points. Palestine won the team title with 104 points, followed by Hudson (110) and Waco Connally (125).

The Panthers boy’s crew made their first-ever trip as a team, taking 18th-place out of 20 teams.

Donald ‘Animal’ Sulser finished in 36th-place with a time of 18:01.4 for the lone Panther in the Top-50.

Keaton Boyd ran injured, and was joined in the team totals by Josh Whatley, Christopher Braaten, Blayne Nobles, and David Heithoff.

District champion, Spring Hill boys placed fourth with 105 points. Hudson won the team title with 72 points, followed by Bridge City (90) and Huffman Hargrave (99). Tatum was seventh with 208 points.

The league champ, Spring Hill’s Gary Duncan barely missed going to state as an individual. Duncan placed 11th with 3.1- mile time of 17:08.4.