HURON - Runners from the Black Hills Conference and Region 5A showed some leg Saturday at the 2007 South Dakota Cross Country Championships.

Hill City and Custer claimed the Class A team championships, and Hot Springs' Eamin Entwisle ran to his first state cross country championship as he finished ahead of Andy Coy of Hill City to win the boys race.

Seven Region 5 runners finished in the top 10 in the boys race, while four girls from the region did the same.

"Hats off to West River," said Hill City coach Dan Asheim, whose boys team won its first cross country team title in school history by edging Redfield and McLaughlin. "When you look at how many of our Region 5 kids are in the top 10, it's amazing. They brought out the best in us every race. We knew we had to run hard every race."

Saturday's state championship completed a hat trick for the Rangers, who swept the Black Hills Conference, Region 5 and state A team championships this season.

Hill City finished with 40 points. Redfield was second with 52 and McLaughlin third with 58.

"There's been a lot of hard practices and a lot of hard meets, but this is the ultimate goal," Coy, a junior, said.

Custer's run to the Class A girls title was fashioned in a way that was very similar to Hill City's title run in the boys division. Karley Konkol was the lone Wildcat to crack the top 10, but Custer placed four in the top 43 overall - the top 25 in team scoring - to knock defending champion Cheyenne-Eagle Butte from the top spot.

"We have some frontrunners," Custer coach Karen Karim said. "But some of the other girls stepped up today.

"Jessica Tennyson ran a great race today. She plays soccer, so she wasn't always with us, but she really came through for us."

Custer finished with 58 team points to 78 for Cheyenne-Eagle Butte. Third place went to Garretson with 82.

Entwisle, a senior at Hot Springs, overcame some pre-race jitters and out-ran Coy for individual honors. The two have battled much of the fall, with Coy winning the BHC title and Entwisle coming out on top at the region meet.

"I got a little panicked (at the start) and I didn't want to get too far back and run from behind," Entwisle said. "I had a pre-race plan to stay in the lead pack, then press harder and harder. I had to work the hills to try and get rid of Andy. I couldn't wait until the last 100 meters."

After falling behind by about 20 meters after the initial sprint from the start line, Entwisle moved into the lead about halfway through the race and stayed in control the rest of the way.

Coy, however, was never far from his mind.

"I kept hearing his name, so I knew I had to go harder and harder," the Hot Springs senior said.

Coy tried pushing up on Entwisle in the latter stages of the race, but he said he couldn't quite catch his BHC foe.

"I knew he was going to go out pretty fast. In the last mile I had to be pretty close to him," Coy said. "I tried to stay with him as best I could, but it turned out he was a little bit stronger."

Entwisle finished in 16 minutes 12.7 seconds. Coy followed in 16:25.3. Todd County's Marc Whirlwind Soldier was third in 16:31.4.

Hill City's Hudson Koel and Colton Njos of Belle Fourche joined them in the top 10. Koel, a senior, finished eighth, while Njos placed 10th.

The Class A girls race featured a classic duel between Kelsey Barrett of Britton-Hecla and Jordan Wohlleber of Cheyenne-Eagle Butte.

The two ran shoulder-to-shoulder for much of the race. Wohlleber, the defending A girls champion, got a slight lead on Barrett, but the Britton-Hecla eighth-grader had a stronger finishing kick to take the title.

Barrett finished in 15:38.3, while Wohlleber crossed the finish line in 15:51.1. Lottie Grimshaw of Todd County was a strong third. The Falcon seventh-grader finished with a time of 16:11.1.

Hot Springs Cassidy Schoenfelder placed fourth and Ashley Iron Moccassin of Cheyenne-Eagle Butte was fifth, Also cracking the top 10 were Pine Ridge's Jessica Tail and Konkol of Custer.