ROUND ROCK -- Flower Mound senior Alex Maier finished the job this time.
A year after dropping out mid-race because of bronchitis, Maier captured the boys Class 6A individual gold at the UIL state cross country championships at Old Settlers Park.
"Coming back here and getting it done was real emotional," Maier said. "I was super-motivated coming into it. It was a feeling before a race that I don't think I've ever felt before. Even weeks before, I was looking forward to it and thinking, 'OK, what I can I do to prepare for it?' I wanted to get this done today."
After finishing third two years ago, Maier thought he had a strong chance to capture gold in 2017.
"I was having a strong season last year and to end it on a note like that was disappointing," Maier said.
On Saturday, Maier covered the 5,000-meter course in 14 minutes, 34.92 seconds. He overtook Ryan Schoppe of La Porte with 400 meters remaining. At that point, he thought back to last year and pressed on.
"I ran like my hair was on fire," Maier said. "When you get to that point of the race, you are just going as hard as you can, all out."
All in perspective: McKinney North junior London Culbreath won the Class 5A girls championship for a third straight time. Like she had the two other times, she breezed to victory. Culbreath won with a time of 16:58.52, 18 seconds better than Montgomery's Allison Wilson.
That brought her individual state-medal count to seven, which includes wins in the 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs her freshman and sophomore years during spring track.
As accomplished as she is, Culbreath said sometimes it's difficult to put everything in perspective. It's getting easier, though.
"Most of the time, I get so caught up in my times and I don't really step back and realized what I've accomplished," Culbreath said. "My coach has talked to me about it before, and I think she realizes that sometimes I don't really appreciate the moment, so I think her talking to me about that has put it all in perspective for me. I'm super-excited about a third state title."
6A girls sweep: Area girls swept the top three individual spots in 6A led by Plano senior Ashlyn Hillyard, who ran a personal-best 16:38.30 for 5,000 meters (3.1 miles). She finished ahead of Denton Guyer sophomore Brynn Brown (16:45.36) and Prosper freshman Aubrey O'Connell (16:52.84).
"I knew they were going to be pretty competitive coming in," Hillyard said of Brown and O'Connell. "I looked at their times from Region I, and I knew they were pretty fast. But, I knew I could hang with them and try to push it then."
Hillyard and Brown broke away from the pack about midway through. That's when Hillyard attacked a hilly portion of the course and took a slight lead.
"My legs felt pretty good at the mile-and-a-half mark, so I knew I could pretty much hopefully win it, so I pushed up those hills and built a lead before the homestretch."
Brown closed in with about 100 meters remaining, but Hillyard's kick was too much.
Brown didn't get a chance to compete at state last year because of a stress reaction in her leg.
"It was a big sense of redemption because I didn't get to run here last year, so I'm really happy with the effort," Brown said. "I would have loved the win, but I'm happy that I got to get here."
Different year, same result: Southlake Carroll finished behind The Woodlands for the fourth time in a row in the 6A boys division. The Dragons, led by junior Nate Lannen's 11th-place finish, scored 113 points, which was 14 behind The Woodlands.
The Woodlands and Southlake Carroll have finished 1-2 each season since 2015. In 2014, Southlake Carroll won the 6A title and The Woodlands was second.
Stacked finish: Area teams took the top five spots in the 6A girls division, led by Coppell, which had 79 points. Coppell was followed by Flower Mound (93), Prosper (94), Southlake Carroll (103) and defending champion Keller (130).
Coppell didn't have a runner finish in the top 25, but its top five runners were all tightly bunched together. Chloe Hassman placed 26th, and the team's next four runners finished 31st, 32nd, 37th and 41st.
Briefly: Frisco Wakeland got a fourth-place finish from Isabella West and a 10th-place finish from Chloe Smith and won the 5A girls team title by eight points over Boerne Champion. ... Aledo junior Graydon Morris won his second straight 5A boys state title, running 15:03.98. ... After winning back-to-back 5A team championships, the Lovejoy boys finished third Saturday behind champion El Paso Eastwood and runner-up Austin Johnson. ... Melissa sophomore Judson Greer won the 4A boys race with a time of 15:02.90.