BOSSIER CITY, La. — Both the boys’ and girls’ cross country teams for Ruston High sprinted out of the gate in the 2025 season with both squads taking first place in the team competition and sophomore Eden Dawsey winning the overall girls’ race at The Border Dash 2025, held at the South Bossier Course Recreational Complex three-mile run.
“This was a really fun season opener,” Ruston Head Coach Dustin Cochran said. “We wanted to start slowly and progress through the race. We thought we were strong enough to run our fastest at the end of the race, finish close together, and hopefully secure a team win to start the season. The race was later in the day so it was way hotter than what we’ve been running in, and we found out they had dumped a miles worth of mulch on the course, which really made it hard to run fast. Your spikes would sink in and the mulch would get stuck to the spikes.
“I thought in both the girls and the boys races we started a little too conservatively, and dug ourselves a little hole, but I was really excited to see that so many of our athletes immediately started working through the field during the second mile and got themselves in a position to compete during the last mile. We had a number of fantastic closing miles.”
Despite the sweltering conditions, Dawsey and senior Hallie Hebert were two of the top three finishes with times of 19 minutes, 35.80 seconds and 19:50.80, respectively. Junior Addison Brister took seventh at 20:34.00, while junior Madison Morris finished ninth at 21:18.50. Senior Maddy Parkman rounded out scoring for the girls with a time of 21:26.40 and eleventh place.
Sophomore Mary Hammond would take 25th at 23:08.90, while junior Diana Santa took 27th at 23:23.30. Junior Emerson Nations finished at 24:29.20 for 36th place, while freshman Rylie Nations finished 45th at 25:25.80. Freshman Lillian Turpin ran 25:34.00 (49th), and junior Harper Anderson finished at 25:46.80. Sophomore Lyla Boudreaux was the final Ruston finisher at 64th (26:39.50).
For the girls, their point total was 28 (1+3+6+8+10). On the boys’ side, it was a 56-point effort (7+8+12+14+15), led by seniors Luke Braswell (16:34.80) and Ben Boudreaux (16:36.60) with eighth and ninth places, respectively. Senior Al-Amin Wilson took 13th at 16:54.40, while junior Preston Parker (16:59.40) and senior Joshua Daulton (17:01.60) took 15th and 16th, respectively.
“I knew the girls won, but I wasn’t sure about the boys,” Cochran said. “When they announced we won I was so fired up and our boys were really thrilled to have executed a race plan well and beat a really really good parkway team. Just out of emotion during the team picture I yelled that’s how you start a cross country season. People yelled back and cheered and it was honestly a really cool experience. It’s nice that after doing this for so long, there are still things to get really happy and really excited about.”
Sophomore Billy Rufleth added a 25th place finish at 17:34.60, and junior Wyatt Hancock finished 38th with a time of 18:12.10. Sophomore Kellen Ketchum finished 45th at 18:37.30, while senior Charles Rufleth took 50th at 18:50.90. Freshman Zion Henderson took 53rd place at 18:53.90, while freshman Lucas Watts ran 18:57.60 for 57th place.
Freshman Owen Hanchey ran 19:34.90 for 66th, and sophomore Roan Sutherland ran 19:35.80 for 68th. Juniors Drake Purvis (19:46.20) and Tate Hammond (19:46.20) both crossed around the same time for 70th and 71st.
Junior Eli Watson took 77th at 19:54.90, and sophomore Keegan Boudreaux placed 87th at 20:22.60. Sophomore Gabriel Mhire ran 20:27.40 for 90th overall.
“It wasn’t a perfect race by any means, but it was the epitome of cross country to start the season,” Cochran said. “I’m glad our teams were up to the challenge and look forward to even more improvement and great moments through the season.”
Ruston will run again Saturday, Sept. 27, at the St. Joseph’s Invitational in Baton Rouge.
