Douglas High's Whitney Lindsey became the school's first female runner to ever win the individual regional cross country title by posting a time of 20:07.92 at the Northern 4A Regional Championship meet at Rancho San Rafael Park in Reno.
Her time was 18 seconds better than South Tahoe's Kelsey Smith, who some favored to win the race.
What may have been more surprising than Lindsey's win was the relative ease in which she won.
Lindsey won in 20:07.92 while Smith was second in 20:25.33.
Taylor Biaggi was 12th in 21:50 to be among the top five runners not on qualifying teams to make it to state.
"I do better in the second half of the race," Lindsey said. "I wanted to go out faster in the first half and try to hold on.
"I just tried to convince myself to push harder. I was really surprised. I was really just amazed."
Both Biaggi and Lindsey have qualified all three years they have competed for the cross country team.
On the boys' side, Derrick Jenkins qualified for next week's state meet as well, coming in 19th with a time of 18:30.78.
Seth White just missed the cut, coming in 20th at 18:33.35.
It was a heartbreaking day for the Douglas girls as a team. In another mild upset, Reno won the girls meet with 52 points. South Tahoe was second with 71 and Carson was third with 79.
Douglas and Elko tied for fourth with 117 points. But since Elko's sixth place runner finished faster that the Tigers' sixth place runner " by four places " the Indians got the fourth and final spot to state.
The Douglas boys' took seventh as a team and Galena won the regional championship.
