Billy Leighton's return to the cross country course couldn't be going much better.

The Central senior won the Class 4 District 1 meet held Saturday at Jackson City Park. He finished in 16 minutes, 29.95 seconds, more than 20 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor.

"Today I was like, ‘Wow. I maintained a lot more fitness than I expected, and I actually got faster,'" Leighton said. "I was happy with today's race. The time wasn't what I wanted, but it's just about getting through to sectionals and onto state, so that's all that matters."

Leighton hadn't run a race in about six months before recording the fastest 5K time in school history at the SEMO Conference meet on Oct. 11. He suffered a stress reaction in his femur during the spring track season and then injured his back shortly after that injury healed.

"At conference I was really surprised," Leighton said. "I didn't expect to run very fast just because I hadn't done any workouts. I just ran some easy miles, but I had to run conference if I wanted to compete at districts. My back felt good that day, so I just went for it."

Leighton has maintained his fitness by swimming and running in a pool as well as riding a stationary bike. He actually headed to the pool on Saturday evening for some training following his win. He said he would swim laps for 20 minutes to raise his heart rate to 200 beats per minutes, then run in the pool for 30 minutes at a moderate intensity before doing deep-water interval running for 10 minutes. Before or after all of that, he'd be on a bike for an hour at 100 rpm.

He hopes all of the hard work will prepare him for the state race in a few weeks time. He finished 11th last year in his first trip to the state meet.

"State's really important," Leighton said. "Ever since I was in like sixth grade I was hoping that whenever I started running I was like, ‘State cross country -- that's going to be my race my senior year. I really want to win it, so I just tried to put myself in the best shape I can to do that."

Leighton was the only Central boy to qualify for the sectional race, which will be hosted by Parkway Central on Saturday.

Two Central girls, sophomores Maddy McDonald and Haley White, qualified with 10th and 22nd place finishes, respectively.

The Jackson boys and girls teams both qualified for the sectional race, meaning all of the Indians' runners will participate. Eight Jackson runners finished in the top 30 to qualify as individuals.

All five scoring members of the boys teams qualified, led by Matt Gibson's 10th place finish. Jack Jeffers, Nate Martin, Gabe Underwood and Noah Weatherby also finished in the top 30 to help Jackson finish third as a team.

Chelsea Drum finished fourth in the girls race to lead Jackson while Tayler Winick and Zhoa Ni Dirnberger also advanced. The girls team finished fourth in the team standings.

Leighton, Gibson, Drum and McDonald all earned all-distict honors with their top 10 finishes.

BOYS

Team standings -- 1. Lindbergh 55, 2. Fox 71, 3. Jackson 90, 4. Oakville 127, 5. Poplar Bluff 145, 6. Mehlville 146, 7. Northwest 153, 8. Rockwood Summit 196, 9. Central 207, 10. Seckman 216, 11. Farmington 242.

Central -- 1. Billy Leighton 16:29.95, 37. Logan Wright 18:26.89, 42. Riley Duncan 18:38.61, 63. Tim Heinsman 19:34.25, 64. Hezikiah Wood 19:41.24

Jackson -- 10. Matt Gibson 17:19.62, 15. Jack Jeffers 17:31.60, 18. Nate Martin 17:36.90, 21. Gabe Underwood 17:37.69, 26. Noah Weatherby 17:54.32

GIRLS

Team standings -- 1. Lindbergh 62, 2. Rockwood Summit 65, 3. Cor Jesu Academy 77, 4. Jackson 113, 5. Farmington 116, 6. Mehlville 141, 7. Seckman 179, 8. Central 181, 9. Northwesy 246, 10. Fox 285

Central -- 10. Maddy McDonald 21:04.55, 22. Haley White 21:36.37, 40. Bridget Trepasso 22:18.05, 62. Megan Saylor 24:01.85, 64. Emily Weisenberger 24:12.03

Jackson -- 4. Chlesea Drum 19:32.58, 23. Tayler Winick 21:38.56, 27. Zhao Ni Dirnberger 21:42.30, 33. Carli Knott 21:52.63, 38. Leah Hecht 22:13.26

SWIMMING

Central finished 13th out of 19 teams at the Springfield Invitational meet Saturday in Springfield, Mo.

Ramsey Scott posted the best individual finish for the Tigers with a sixth place finish in the 100-yard freestyle event with a time of 51.75 seconds. He placed 13th in the 50-yard freestyle with a time of 23.83.

Scott joined with Christian Retter, Pablo Jaramillo and Sam Rhodes to finish seventh in the 200-yard freestyle relay in 1:37.83.

Rhodes posted a top 20 finish in the 500-yard freestyle. He came in 18th with a time of 5:56.47.

Colin Keele finished 20th in the 100-yard backstroke with a time of 1:08.89 and Jaramillo came in 16th in the 100-yard breaststroke in 1:12.01.

SOCCER

Bayless 3, Notre Dame 0

The Bulldogs dropped to 14-7 with a road loss.

-- From staff reports