Edison's Myah Hicks took one last shot at winning a regional cross-country championship Thursday at Burke Lake Park and came up about 12 seconds short.

Hicks, who has been atop the Northern Region's running scene for most of her scholastic career both in track and cross-country, finished the three-mile course in 17 minutes, 50 seconds, good for second place and a berth in the state championship meet next weekend in The Plains, Va.

Lake Braddock sophomore Sophie Chase, who won the region last year and finished third in the state as a freshman, defended her title and helped the Bruins' girls' team to a repeat regional title with a time of 17:38.

"She always challenges me, she's a great competitor and a great runner, she did really great today," Hicks said of Chase, who started slow and then picked up her pace after about a mile. "She actually went out a lot slower than I thought (she would), because I was with her the whole first mile, and as soon as we got out of the campground and onto the pavement, she sped up and I probably should have gone with her. The mile time was a lot slower than usual. It was smart what she did."

On a rain-soaked course, Hicks actually dropped about a two seconds off her National District-winning time which came last week on a balmy, sun-drenched day.

"I felt good, I'm not disappointed at all," said Hicks, who is the reigning Virginia state champion in the 800-meters. "It was a little slippery out there. It was my last Burke Lake race, so I wanted to make it good. I beat my time from last week, just by a little."

Hicks' strong finish wasn't enough to pull the Eagles out of the lower rung of teams that qualified for the regional meet, but they did finish 15^th, one spot better than local rival Hayfield. Tara Tinsley, Alex Hastings, Nicole Lyon and Madeleine Boel were the other runners to score for the Eagles.

Hicks, who will run the final cross-country race of her Edison career without any teammates, said she expects her teammates to put in a solid performance next year.

"I think we did awesome this year. We're still very young," she said. "They have a couple of years to keep improving. They're going to do really well in the future."

Senior Gerardo Munevar, who has been a top-10 runner in the National District,  wasn't thrilled with his last career race, as he finished 70^th, which was only third on the team. Perhaps it was a passing of the torch, as freshman Louis Colson led the boys' team with a 27^th-place finish.  David Bulir, Michael Knopp and John McAlister rounded out the scoring for the Eagles, who placed 13th out of 16 teams.

Munevar said he hopes he has left a legacy of hard work with the Edison team.

"I think this year's team started new things. Never before had an Edison team met on Sunday and went on a 10-mile run. I hope this does become an Edison tradition and in the future people on our team start meeting on Sundays and doing the morning runs because it really does help you get faster," he said.

The other teams qualifying out of the region in the girls' meet were Jefferson, West Potomac and West Springfield. In the boys' meet, West Potomac took the title with five runners scoring in the top 25. Lake Braddock, South Lakes and Herndon also qualified for the state meet. Ahmed Bile, the lone runner from Annandale, won the individual title with a time of 15:22.