St. Paul's wins Class 5A Cross Country State Championship; Eric Coston and Zachary Albright finish 0ne-Two for Wolves

Pictured at left, members of the St. Paul's Class 5A Cross Country State Championship team receive their championship trophy. At right, the Wolves proudly raise the hardware signifying them as state champs..

St. Paul's Wolves cross country team accomplished what they set out to do this season by capturing the Class 5A state title in classic fashion yesterday at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches.
St. Paul's continued its dominance with sensational freshman Eric Coston out dueling senior teammate Zachary Albright finishing one-two leading the victorious Wolves to the team title with 34 points as they blew away the 10-team field with Catholic of Baton Rouge a distant second with 121 points.
Coston, who has excelled, showing loads of maturity after transferring to St. Paul's from the Hammond area, set the pace finishing with a time of 15:15.79. Zachary Albright, who only lost one previous race this season, capping off a brilliant career, made his mark, taking second at 15:20.66. St. Paul's had two other runners finish in the top 10 with Kraemer Jackson finishing eighth, 15:56.86 and D. C. Lipani, 16:08.62 was tenth.
St. Paul's coach Terryl Chatham talked about his Wolves' dominant performance.
"What a great group of kids. We have been through so much together and for our seniors to go out this way with a state title is really special," Chatham said. 
Chatham talked about Coston being a really special runner. "Eric is an incredible talent. I am really proud of how extremely hard he worked. He certainly has a chance to win more state titles in the future," Chatham added.
Ponchatoula's Isiah Gilbert finished ninth in the Class 5A race. St. Paul's Spencer Albright came in 13th 16:16.07. Other top 25 local finishers included Northshore's Noah Martin in 15th place 16:26.15 followed by Mandeville's Dylan Heck 16:26.16 and Northshore's John Neal was 17th 16:27.55.