The Dawson County High School Lady Tiger cross country team opened the season with a meet at Athens Christian High School on Saturday.

Head Coach Brian DeRose's team competed against some stiff competition in the Northeast Georgia Cross Country championships.

Class AAAAAA Mill Creek High School took the team championship.

Lakeside, Evans High School finished in second place.

Savannah Estes ran the best time for Dawson County at 23:07.53 for a 57th place finish out of 133 runners.

"I thought Savanna ran a solid race," DeRose said.

Also running for the Lady Tigers were: Cassidy Lecours, 25:05, Bethany Auten, 25:35, Megan Spillane, 26:02, Sara Bywaletz, 26:08 and Faith Sinclair, 26:25.

Winning the event was Tayler Tuttle from Providence Christian with a time of 19:06.25.

Runner-up was Sarah Bowles from Lakeside with a time of 19:08.

"The girls' team ran well for a first meet. We were missing our second and third runners to injury. I factored them into the results after the fact and we still look OK," DeRose said.

The girls' team is young this year, according to DeRose.

"The girls are young this year with three sophomores and two freshmen in the top seven," he said.

"You can't coach experience, so I need to keep these young ones healthy and get some more races under their belts. State is still our goal this year, as is every year, and I believe it's realistic so long as we stay healthy. We still have a lot of season left," he added.