CARY --
East Chapel Hill's Carolyn Baskir showed she had the stuff to compete with some of the nation's best high school cross country runners on Saturday.
Baskir recorded the second-fastest time ever run on the WakeMed Soccer Park course, winning the girls Race of Champions in The Great American Cross Country Festival.
Baskir set a personal best with a time of 17:14 on the 5K course.
She was challenged in the final quarter-mile when Samantha Nadel of North Shore High School in New York passed her.
"I watched her [pass me] and she wasn't pulling away. I was thinking 'No, I think I can catch her,' " said Baskir, who reclaimed the lead within 100 yards and finished three seconds ahead of Nadel. Diane Robison of Parkway Central in Chesterfield, Mo., was third in 17:37.
Baskir's first-place finish helped East Chapel Hill to an eighth-place team finish.
Saratoga Springs (N.Y.) High won the girls race with 59 points, followed by Blacksburg (Va.) High at 109 and Midlothian (Va.) High at 120.
Green Hope had 189 as the lowest-scoring North Carolina girls team. Green Hope's girls did an excellent job running as a pack. Their top five runners all finished between the 31st and 45th places.
Competing as individuals, Millbrook's Samantha George finished 12th with a time of 18:31 and Leesville Road's Lauren Strapp finished 18th at 18:44.
The Green Hope boys also fared well.
Green Hope's boys finished fifth overall with 189 points, led by Bryan's Spreitzer's eighth-place finish in 15:34.
Spreitzer finished in a pack of North Carolina runers led by Reidy Jones of Broughton (sixth with a time of 15:29), followed by Cary's Mohamed Abushouk (15:30), who was competing as an individual.
"Coming in, team-wise, we were just thinking the top 10 would be great," Green Hope coach Michael Miragliuolo said. "We're going to judge ourselves on how we did versus the North Carolina teams."
Snellville (Ga.) Brookwood High won the boys' team title with 111 points, followed by Seekonk (Mass.) Bishop Hendrickson at 139, Nashua (N.H.) Bishop Guertin with 143 and Thiels (N.Y.) North Rockland with 152.
Broughton was sixth with 200 points, Sanderson eighth at 239 and Leesville Road ninth in the 21-team field with 287 points.
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The Holly Springs High girls softball team and the Middle Creek baseball team will begin best-of-three series on Friday in the N.C. High School Athletic Association championships. 
Nearby 2A prep softball rivals North Johnston and Wilson Beddingfield played the ultimate grudge match Saturday afternoon, double-time style. 
Holly Springs seniors Jenna Firestein and Kristen Krebs knew Saturday’s contest against Fayetteville Jack Britt would be their final home game as members of the Golden Hawks softball team. 
Green Hope’s perfect season is snatched away by Charlotte Hough in the final 12 minutes of the state final at N.C. State’s Dail Soccer Field in a 2-1 finish. 
The Holly Springs Golden Hawks softball team has had an exciting past week of playing close games. On Friday, however, the Hawks fourth close game in a week ended in a 3-2 loss to Britt, as the Buccaneers rallied with two runs in the bottom of the seventh to tie the score and then won in the eighth to even the series at one game apiece. 
The Green Hope High girls soccer team is ranked No. 1 in the country, but won’t reach its goal unless it beats Hough in the N.C. High School Athletic Association 4A championships on Saturday.
Follow the game on our Twitter account, @prepsnow or get a Twitter feed at our high school blog, Preps Now. 
