By David Volz

Cross-country teams from Coral Springs High School and J.P. Taravella performed well at the district championship held at Markham Park.

CSHS and JPT boys placed fourth and fifth, respectively, qualifying for the regional meet at Tropical Park in Miami-Dade on Wednesday.

Jeffrey Belizaire, a top runner from CSHS, earned a second-place finish at the meet. Teammates Matthew Wykpisz finished 13, and Thomas Dimitri finished 19th.

For JPT, Akeem Beckford finished in 20th place for the Trojans.

The CSHS girls team finished 5th overall, and the JPT girls team finished 7th. Both teams earned a place in the regional meet in Miami-Dade.

Qyrah Spann-Pierre finished fourth, and Arne Raquel finished 13th for Taravella.

Angelica Macarulay of Coral Springs finished 6th, and teammate Olivia Higgins finished 16th.

Dawn Spann, who coaches the JPT teams, believed they could have done better.

“Some of our runners were sick and did not run as fast,” she said. “Now we are getting ready for the regional meet. We are going to be running on some of the hills and nearby parks, and we will do speed work. We will be ready for the regional meet.” Her daughter Qyrah is the leading runner on the team and participates in jumping events and hurdles during the track season.

David Pierre-Louis, who coaches the CSHS teams, was pleased with the performance of the runners.

“We have trained hard during the late summer and fall, and now we are doing well. I believe we can qualify for the state championship meet in Tallahassee.

While Coral Glades did not qualify as a team, they still had three runners continue their successful season, highlighted by Ali Abdallah. He came in 34th with a time of 19.11:38 while Anderson Jean Baptise and Quincy Ocasio also raced for the Jaguars.

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