The New Albany High School boys cross country team appears ready to test its progress against the state's elite runners.

The Eagles, competing in Division I for just the third season, advanced to state as a team for the first time since 1979.

New Albany advanced after finishing third with 139 points at the region 3 meet last Saturday at Pickerington North, behind North (75) and Reynoldsburg (118) and ahead of Dublin Coffman (147).

The four teams will compete in the Division I state meet on Saturday at Scioto Downs.

"It was a great day," coach Chad Olinger said. "It was a big day for our program. We knew going in that we had the opportunity to get to the state meet. We just had to execute and our boys executed.

"For us to compete with those two programs above us - we beat Reynoldsburg (Oct. 24 at district) - to be with them again this week and to beat Dublin Coffman, who has been ranked in the state all year long, our boys just took another major step forward."

At regional, junior Blake Taneff again led the Eagles, finishing fifth in 17 minutes, 23.38 seconds.

Junior Sebastian Matt was 25th (18:11.20), followed by freshmen Austin Bach (30th, 18:16.20) and Drew Rose (41st, 18:27.10) and junior Tom Newton (65th, 18:49.13).

Juniors Alex Stanislav (19:34.76) and Willie Matt (19:35.90) rounded out the New Albany effort.

"We're definitely on the upswing," Sebastian Matt said. "We keep thinking that we're good this year, but next year we're going to get even better and work toward giving a lot more."

With the Eagles loaded with underclassmen, the future looks bright. Olinger hopes that Saturday's experience leads to future success.

"We told our boys it was possible this year, but we also thought by the time that the juniors this year were seniors, we really thought that would be the time that we would get to the state meet," Olinger said. "I would say we got there a year sooner than what I expected, but we'll definitely take it."

State-ranked St. Ignatius, Sylvania Northview, Medina and St. Xavier are considered the teams to beat on Saturday.

"We want to get a good gauge for where we are in the state," Olinger said. "It's a little bit of that bright lights thing. These kids are going to be running in front of 15,000 people, which is huge. We want to treat this meet the way we've treated the last couple of weeks and compete the same way."

•Senior Maria Troutman and freshman Mirra Galbreath represented the girls team at the regional meet last Saturday.

Galbreath was 40th (21:32.94) and Troutman finished 54th (21:57.94).

The top 16 individuals advanced to Saturday's state meet.

"The two girls ran really hard," coach Mary Grefka said. "The conditions were terrible. Mirra was in the top 20 for about the first mile and a half and then just being young and not being as strong as some of the older girls, she tried to hang on as much as she could, but the work it took just to run the course caught up to her a little bit. It was a great experience to get there."