The Livingston girls won for the first time since, the Columbia boys repeated as champs and Connor Polen of Newark Academy and Keira Monagle of Columbia won the individual titles at the Essex County Championships on Friday at Cedar Grove Park.
In the girls race, Livingston was trailing Columbia, 38-41 after each team had three across across the line. But Livingston's No. 5 runner, junior Kiera D'Souza, finished 12 scoring places ahead of Columbia's No. 5 to secure a hard-fought 64-73 win for Livingston.
This is the first title for the Livingston girls since it won a fourth straight championship in 2009.
Livingston's scoring combination was 5-7-8-21-23 and the Lancers averaged 21:17. Columbia finished 1-11-12-14-35 and averaged 21:24.
The top five runners for Livingston were senior Sophia Pasparsenos, 7th in 20:17, junior Sophie Schumacher, 8th in 20:35, senior Sarah Nidhan, 9th in 21:03, senior Lila Maru, 23rd in 22:09, and D'Souza, 25th in 22:26.
Columbia was led by junior Keira Monagle, who continued her huge breakout rookie season by winning the race in 19:12.
COLUMBIA GOES BACK-TO-BACK, POLEN WINS
In the boys race, Columbia remained the top pack in the county with 35-47 victory over runner-up Millburn, and Connor Polen, second as a sophomore last year, ran 16:06 to win the individual crown.
Columbia's strong frontal attack that featured four guys in the top 8 was just too much for any team to match and the Cougars averaged 16:58 to secure their second straight championship
The five scorers for Columbia, who put four runners ahead of Millburn's No. 3, were junior Leo Klint, second in 16:22, sophomore Levi Taber-Kewene, third in 16:51, Christian Caradetta, seventh in 17:00, senior Asa Glassman, eighth in 17:02, and sophomore Julius Marshall, 15th in 17:33.