Watauga's Darby Middlebrook won the girls 1,600-meter indoor state championship at the N.C. 4A meet at Chapel Hill Saturday.
Middlebrook, a two-time All-Observer cross-country runner of the year, won comfortably ahead of Morrisville Green Hope's Erica Amatori. Middlebrook also finished second in the 3,200.
Middlebrook is the first girls runner in school history to win the 1,600.
Southeast Guilford and Knightdale finished tied for the N.C. 4A boys championship. The highest-placing Observer-area team was No. 16 Watauga. Ardrey Kell was 18th.
Raleigh Wakefield won its second straight girls championship. Watauga finished fifth. Providence was the highest-finishing Mecklenburg County team at 18th.
In the 1A/2A/3A meet, Burlington Cummings won its fifth straight girls championship with 53 points. Monroe (46) was third overall.
Raleigh Cardinal Gibbons won the boys meet. Marvin Ridge was third. Berry was fifth.
Individual 1A/2A/3A champions included:
Cuthbertson's 1,600-meter relay girls team (Mikaela Seibert, Veronica Pfaff, Raven Covington and Nikolete Hurrinus). Salisbury's William Brown won the high-jump.
Piedmont wins N.C. 2A wrestling title
Piedmont beat Newport's Croatan High 41-22 to win the N.C. 2A dual-team championship.
Piedmont (38-0) is ranked No. 1 in the N.C. 2A poll and was wrestling Croatan for the third straight year in the finals. Croatan had won the previous two meetings: 41-30 last year and 36-18 in 2010.
Winston-Salem Parkland won the 4A championship 36-25 over Pinecrest. It was Parkland's sixth straight state championship.
In 3A, Hillsborough Orange beat Southwestern Randolph 34-30. And in the 1A finals, West Wilkes beat Ayden-Grifton 50-13. West Wilkes won its third straight state championship.
The N.C. individual wrestling regionals are Friday and Saturday. The individual state finals are Feb. 23-35 at the Greensboro Coliseum.
