Jared's World

Mercer’s pair of middle school boys runners stood out from the pack in the conference’s marquee meet. Eighth graders Jacob Crowell finished second and Dean Tyler finished fourth place, both earning spots on the CKC middle school boys all-conference team.

For Burgin, Alex Beckerson took a seventh place finish in the 5K run to lead the boys varsity cross country team to a sixth place finish in the Franklin County Invitational held last Saturday at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington.

For more details on both teams, check this week’s edition of The Harrodsburg Herald.

Burgin’s dominant streak continued. The team has now won all of their five varsity meets this season as they power toward their goal of a second-straight regional title.

The Bulldog boys won the meet, while freshman runner Alex Beckerson earned his second winning time of the season at 18:04.

Beckerson and the Bulldogs also finished well at the Trinity Invitational Friday. All but one of the Burgin runners set new personal records, while Alex Beckerson won the freshman race with a time of 16:13.

For more Burgin info and Mercer County’s results, check this week’s edition of The Harrodsburg Herald. Click here to view the gallery from the All-Comers race.

Mercer County as a whole had several runners step up big and represent at the 2009 Boyle County Invitational Thursday night.

The Burgin boys were the top team at the meet, while freshman runner Alex Beckerson earned his first winning time of the season. The Bulldogs now have four wins in four meets while Beckerson has finished 2nd, 2nd, 2nd and 1st individually. Beckerson’s mother and assistant coach Darla Beckerson said the team had a special nickname for Alex after his string of “close but no cigar” finishes.

“He has been placing 2nd so often lately, that we’ve started calling him silver,” Beckerson joked.

Burgin’s Mackenzie Kibler took first place in the girls middle school run, covering 1.9 miles in 12:53. Mercer eighth grader Jacob Crowell won the boys middle school race with a time of 11:29, while teammate Dean Tyler picked up third with 11:57.

Burgin cross country coach David Beckerson has lofty goals – and a speedy group of boys who he feels could win it all.

Beckerson’s stated goal for 2009 is to take the region for a second straight year and place top-three as a team in the state meet.

After a slipup at last year’s state race, he says his team will need to keep their eyes on the prize.

“Our goal was to win region and make it to the top five in state. We were so happy after winning region that we lost our focus,” he said.

Find out more about coach Beckerson and the program he’s built at Burgin in this week’s edition of The Harrodsburg Herald. For pictures, check out The Harrodsburg Herald’s Sports page on Flickr. If you’d like to buy a photo, give The Herald a call at 859-734-2726