The T.R. Miller Lady Tiger cross country team found themselves in a familiar spot Saturday at the state cross country meet in Oakville.
For the third straight year, the Lady Tigers earned the class 3A state runner-up trophy.
The Lady Tigers fell 18 points short losing to Rogers 60-42. Last season the Lady Tigers lost by two points to Montgomery Academy and in 2008, came up seven points short also to Montgomery Academy.
Saturday, the Lady Tigers placed first and second overall in the race with overall state champion Karisa Nelson placing first with a time of 18:41.54 and Shelby Youngblood placing second with a time of 19:38.07.
Rogers would place third and fourth and fifth while T.R. Miller’s third runner across, Katie Nelson ran a time of 20:39.36 for a ninth place finish to tie the meet at 12-12 after three runners.
Rogers fourth runner came earned 13 points to T.R. Miller’s 16 and their fifth runner earned 17 to T.R. Miller’s 32 to claim the title.
Amber Nelson placed 20th overall for T.R. Miller with a time of 21:17.94 and Amber Terry placed 42nd with a time of 22:26.11.
Katie Baggett, Emmy Granade and Breann Huff placed 74th, 75th, and 76th while Taylor Guthrie placed 101st and Abbie Carlson placed 104th.
T.R. Miller’s second place finish was out of 13 teams and there were 128 total runners in the race.
Rogers previously placed second last year in 4A to UMS-Wright and first in 2008.
Karisa Nelson and Shelby Youngblood placed national elite times with Nelson claiming her second straight overall first place.
This year, Nelson shaved off 12 seconds from her 2009 time of 18:53 as an eighth grader. Nelson placed second in 2008 as a seventh grader with a time of 19:17.
T.R. Miller will lose no seniors from the team this year and their 10 finishers Saturday are in the following grades: freshman, sophomore, freshman, junior, freshman, junior, freshman, seventh grade, junior, junior.
While the girls took second place, two T.R. Miller Tiger boys competed in the race as individuals.
Christian Carlson placed 15th overall and was the third overall boy competing as an individual while Rob Stokes placed 24th overall. Carlson’s time was 18:15.48 and Stokes’ time was 18:34.58. Carlson and Stokes ran against 127 total runners and placed in the top-25.

Girls results:
http://al.milesplit.com/meets/72927/results/143963

Boys results:
http://al.milesplit.com/meets/72927/results/143964