Going down to the last possible second, the Mercer Island girls cross country team won the KingCo conference title Thursday, Oct. 20.

Mercer Island and Liberty each finished the race with 49 points, sending the meet into a tie breaker, in which the placement of the sixth place runner breaks the time. Luckily for the Islanders, senior captain Mikayla Davis finished ahead of the No. 6 runner from Liberty to give Mercer Island the title. Davis finished in 19th place overall with a race time of 20:34, while Liberty’s Aimee Christensen was 24th overall at 21:12.

It was the second straight title for the Islander girls at the KingCo race. The boys finished in third as a team with 94 points, behind Bellevue and Liberty.

In the girls race, Katia Matora finished in first place with an 18:40 time, almost a minute ahead of Sammamish’s Pascale De Sa Silva who finished in 19:39. Alida Scalso was eighth overall with a 20:04 time, while Laura Brindley took 11th place. Lindsay Benster was 14th and Linden Elggren was 15th. Lauren Knebel finished in 21st place.

In the boys race, Austin Scarff finished in 15th place with a 17:31 time and Joey Chiang finished in 17th with a 17:34 time. Brett Bottomley took 19th place at 17:45. Matt Wotipka was 21st, while Daniel Mayer was 22nd and Nathan Gallatin was 35th, followed by Alex Mesher in 36th place.

Both teams qualified for the SeaKing district competition, taking place Thursday, Oct. 27 at Lake Sammamish State Park in Issaquah. The girls race will begin at 2:30 p.m., followed by the boys at 3:15 p.m.

The top five teams will advance to the state competition, with the top 25 runners whose teams do not qualify will also move forward. The state race will take place on Nov. 5 at the Sun Willows Golf Course in Pasco, Wash.