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Coach Ken Nelson's team came through, though, winning the final eight track events and 10 of 12 overall. The Pioneers finished with 194 points and walked away with their fifth consecutive County Meet championship. Marlette was next with 154 points.

In the meantime, The Pioneers' Michael Hartson and the Raiders' John Bishop shared the Robert Sullivan Award for Male Athletes of meet.

Nelson, in his first season as head coach, credited his team for a gutty effort Thursday on Marlette's home track, especially after winning the BWAC championship on Tuesday.

"It's tough to come off that. What we did Tuesday was incredible. It was an emotional high... we had to come back a couple of days later. It's hard to get up again, but we came back and did real well."

Coach Chris Storm of Marlette was hoping his team could make a run at ending the Pioneers' streak at the County, but he still liked what he saw from his squad.

"I was really proud of the kids. We had a lot of personal-bests. Three of our four relays had their best times," he said. "Basically, we just couldn't keep up with their depth. But, overall this was the best run we've had at them."

Cros-Lex also stemmed Marlette's early, fast start despite being without sprinter Josh Kowal, who had won the 200, was second in the 100, and was on the winning 1600 relay team at the BWAC Meet, but had since suffered an ankle injury.

"We had Josh listed in six events (for County). I know he can only be in four, but in reality, it took six different individuals to replace him," noted Nelson. "Actually, we replaced him with his younger brother (Josh) on the 4x100 (3rd place) and (Josh) was able to earn his varsity letter."

Away from the field events, Cros-Lex came out and won the 3200 meter relay to start the list of track events. However, Marlette's Austin Comment out-dueled the Pioneers' Brad Farley to win the 110 meter high hurdles (16.05) and Bishop picked up his second gold medal by winning the 100 (11.77).

Except for Marlette's victory in the 400 meter relay, the Pioneers went on to take firsts in the rest of the events, led by Hartson and others.

Hartson, who was second to Bishop in the 100, edged out the Raider junior for first in the 200 (24.1) and won 400 (53.45). He also took the baton on the final leg of the winning 1600 relay (3:40.05) team.

"I'm really happy and really proud of him," offered Nelson on Hartson's performance. "He's a real polite young man. He's just been solid for me, as a first-year coach, and he's been a team leader..... and he's fast."

Freshman Abel Lerma won a pair events for C-L, taking the 1600 (4:44.61) and the 3200 (10:20.33) meter runs. Farley added a win, and a little revenge, by nipping Comment for the gold in the 300 hurdles (41.87). David Soflin had the Pioneers' other individual first, winning the 800 run (2:06.56). He was also on the 1600 relay with Hartson, Farley and Jacob Tanner and on the 3200 relay (8:50.99) unit with Patrick O'Connor, Cody Torrez, and Jacob Tanner.

Nelson got his reward from his team members while getting ready for a team picture with the championship trophy. He was urged by his players to stand in the middle of the group. Just as cameras begin to click, Nelson was doused by several bottles of water.

"It was fun. They got me pretty good," smiled Nelson. "I was thinking 'how did they get that much water."

Bishop, who was coming off a recent knee injury, started his day for Marlette by winning the long jump with a leap of 20'.5". He later teamed with Brian McClelland, Ryan Sabo, and Comment for a first in the 400 relay in a season-best time of 0:46.18.

"He blew his knee out at Reese, but he rebounded really well," remarked Coach Storm. "John was out about 10 days and I wasn't sure how he'd be. But, he responded well. He came back at the league (meet) and the County. I didn't really expect this. I'm excited for him."

The Raiders also had firsts from Sabo in the pole vault (12-6), Brandon King in the discus (125-9) and Andy Warner in the shot put (46-5). Warner was also second in the discus.

The only other gold-medal performances on the day came from Sandusky's Sam Stevens in the high jump (6-2) the Deckerville 800 relay team of Scott Gobie, Cody Ross, Marcus Kemp and Brett Ross (1:38.63).

A total of 26 season-best times or distances were recorded in the boys meet by those that placed in the top six in their events.