In only their second year in the sport, Hayden’s girls cross country team dominated the Class 5A team standings in the AHSAA sectional meet at Hewitt-Trussville Middle School on Thursday. That gave them the right to move on to the state championships next week at Oakville Indian Mounds Park.

But it’s a right they choose not to exercise.

Instead, Coach John Simmons’ team, most of which makes up his basketball squad as well, will be playing hoops.

“We have a tournament in Oneonta, and only a couple of our cross country girls don’t play basketball, so we talked it over a while back and decided this is what we would do,” Simmons said.

Their neighbors at Mortimer Jordan are thankful, because that opens up a team spot for them at Oakville. The Blue Devils finished fourth in the team standings, with only the top three advancing, so the other teams move up a spot and clear a path for Jordan.

They will join the Devils’ boys team, who also qualified for state finals by virtue of a third-place team finish.

Hayden’s Krista Strcklin, who was a medalist last year at state, was second the 5A girls race with a time of 21:42. She was more than a minute behind winner Cheyenne Thompson of Chelsea.

The Wildcats placed all of their five scoring runners in the top ten positions. Mary Berkey placed fourth, Peyton Boyd was sixth, Grayson Taylor eighth and Sam Ashley tenth.

Hayden’s boys did not fare as well, finishing well back seventh in seventh place. Houston Launius was the Cats’ top runner, finishing 30th.

Class 6A: Gardendale knew what it was getting into when it faced longtime cross country powers Mountain Brook and Hewitt, and Thursday’s sectional went according to the usual form.

The Rockets finished fifth in both the boys and girls divisions, with the Spartans and Huskies finishing one-two in both.

Miller Wood was the only Gardendale runner to qualify for state as an individual. He placed 15th with a time of 17:27, about a minute out of first place.

Brooke Graham led the Rocket girls with a 24:07 time, finishing in 37th place.

Class 4A: Corner only entered four runners — three girls and one boy — but all of them qualified as individuals for the state finals.

Carissa Reeves placed sixth among girls with a 24:59 time. Lauren Watkins and Kristin Vinson also qualified. Preston Sloan ran the course in 22:23 in 22nd place.