Pine Forest High's Darroneisha Lott was shocked.

Lott had just finished second out of 156 runners in the girls division race at Saturday's Wildcat Invitational cross country meet at Osceola Municipal Golf Course.

"I wasn't expecting that at all," Lott said. "I feel good, but I wasn't expecting that."

Washington High coach Everett Whiteside also got a nice surprise.

Five of the runners on the boys team finished in the top 20, enabling the Wildcats to edge out rival Fort Walton Beach High for first place. The Washington girls came in eighth — the best finish among Pensacola area teams. There were 25 high school teams competing in one of the signature cross country meets in this region.

"I am very happy after seeing that result," Whiteside said. "I still see some room for improvement and some areas where we can bolster our top seven, but overall, we ran strong against Fort Walton Beach."

Lott finished the 3.1-mile course in 19 minutes, 56.43 seconds. Teammate Crystal Wachob, the 2008 News Journal athlete of the year in 2008, was wasn't far behind. She took a seventh-place finish in a time of 20:16.77.

Lott and Wachob led area runners to push Pine Forest's girls team to an 11th-place finish out of 21 schools. Washington was led by Dieldra Clark and Casilda Ruiz, who finished in 33rd and 35th respectively.

Gulf Breeze girls finished 10th, led by Kathleen Costers, who placed 20th, and Jennifer Pfeiffler, who came in 26th.

Washington's Peter Fricke came in third in the boys race with a time of 16:32.05 to lead area runners. But Fricke already is determined to do better at his next meet.

"Individually, I didn't do as well as I wanted to, but I think we did well as a team," Fricke said before the results were known. "I think I finished in about 16:30, but my goal was sub-16. That will have to come later."

Washington's Thomas Arnold placed fifth, and Pine Forest's Dominic Dalton finished seventh.