Urbana Athletics Win Three Regional Titles in One Day

Urbana High School’s athletic program had a historic day on Saturday, winning three regional titles in the span of a few hours. The boys Soccer team, girls Cross Country team and boys Cross Country team all came away as champions at their Regional events.

The Tiger Soccer team dominated Charleston with a score of 6-0 and then later Champaign Centennial with a 4-0 score to claim the 2A Regional title. Urbana was led by goals from Bennett Anderson, Magnus Parente and Pablo Diaz.

“I think we could have played better, but it’s always tough when it’s a crosstown rival. We live to see another day, and we hope to play well on Tuesday,” Urbana coach Randy Blackman said in an interview with the News Gazette after the game.

Holly Hart/The News-Gazette
The Urbana Boys Soccer team poses with the 2A Regionals champion plaque.

The girls Cross Country team, who was widely expected to win the regionals meet, executed their race plans perfectly with excellent performances from Libby Cultra (18:28), Olivia Rosenstein (18:29), and Chian Scott (19:21). Eleven points separated Urbana High and the runner up, Urbana University High. The girls repeated as Regional champions as they also won the meet last year in Danville.

On the boys side, the Tigers came away with an impressive unexpected victory while missing one of their top runners, Tyler Carrell, due to illness. Urbana edged out Morris High School by 6 points with a score of 57 points. The race was won individually by Urbana’s Justice Carter with a time of 16:31, earning him the top spot on the All-Regional team. Payton Borich, missed the All-Regional team by one place, earning a 6th spot in the race with a time of 17:08. The victory was the first Regional championship for the boys program in over 50 years.

The meet on Saturday marked the first time in program history that both the boys and girls won Regionals in the same season.

Both the Urbana Boys & Girls Cross Country teams pose with their respective 2A Regional Plaques.

For all three Urbana Athletic teams, this just the beginning. The soccer team will compete towards a Sectional title on Tuesday against Rochester on Urbana’s home turf at 5 p.m. The Cross Country team will be in action at the Sectional meet in Bloomington-Normal on Saturday in hopes of advancing to the State Meet.