NATCHEZ &8212; The team championship in the varsity girls division of the 2006 Kramer Fife Memorial Relays at Bobby Marks Stadium went down to the mile relay between Tensas Academy and Huntington on a breezy Thursday afternoon.

Tensas was holding a narrow three-point lead over Huntington, 43 to 40, going into the last event that would determine first and second place between the two teams.

And when the event, also known as the mile relay, was over, Tensas&8217; team of Caity Rogers, Aubrey McEacharn, Mary Miller Ratcliff and Ish Crigler crossed the finish line first for six points to give them 49 points and the first-place team trophy.

&8220;It&8217;s a big turnaround from two weeks ago,&8221; Tensas track coach Chris Jacobs said. &8220;We&8217;re still trying to get down to where we were last year in our times. But it&8217;s definitely satisfying. It&8217;s going to be hard to beat Huntington at district.&8221;

And as Jacobs pointed out, Tensas&8217; varsity girls won all three relay events. In addition to the 1600-meter relay, they also won the 400 and 3200 relays earlier in the afternoon. And those 18 total points proved to be crucial.

&8220;That probably ended up being the difference for us,&8221; Jacobs said. &8220;It&8217;s always nice to win the mile relay and be the clincher.&8221;

As much as Tensas&8217; girls won first place overall in the relay events, perhaps as Huntington coach Penny Moak said, her girls team lost on the field events, which is one of its strong points.

Huntington finished second overall with a total of 44 points.

&8220;We were running short-handed,&8221; Moak said. &8220;We were missing one of our relay girls. We had to make some changes, so I think that affected us. I was pleased in some areas.&8221;

Marie Miller had to fill in for Huntington&8217;s girls on the 400 and 800 relays, where they finished second and third, respectively.

&8220;Plus she ran the two mile and the 800 run,&8221; Moak said. Miller won the two-mile (3200 meter) run and finished third in the 800 run.

Adams Christian&8217;s Ariana DeLaSalle, the defending state champion in the high jump, finished first in that event with a jump of 5-3.

Copiah&8217;s varsity boys&8217; team held off a hard-charging Trinity Episcopal team in the last three events and took home the first-place trophy with 66 points. At one point, Copiah held a narrow six-point lead, 53-47, with just three events to go.

But a third-place finish in the 200-meter dash, a first-place finish in the 3200-meter run and a second in the 1600 relay put it away.

Trinity&8217;s Stevan Ridley won the 200-meter dash and Austin Green finished second in the 3200-meter run, but it wasn&8217;t quite enough to catch Copiah.

&8220;It was a good meet to come to,&8221; Trinity coach David King said. &8220;Coach (Kramer) Fife was a good person. Our field events, we&8217;ve got to get better to compete in AA. Our kids ran hard and I was very proud of them.

&8220;We&8217;ve done good in track the last seven or eight years. Just not having the field events have hampered us. There were a lot of good teams out there today.&8221;

Huntington&8217;s varsity boys finished third overall with 40 points.

&8220;Our boys are really coming on,&8221; Moak said. &8220;We have some guys who have never run track until this year. They&8217;re a real competitive bunch.&8221;

Trinity Episcopal&8217;s junior high boys team finished a distant second behind Tallulah Academy with 48 points. Tallulah easily won first place with 87 points.

Wilkinson Christian&8217;s track teams under coach Paul Hayles also did quite well. The varsity boys finished fourth with 36 points after winning the 1600-meter relay. The junior high girls team finished in second place with 46 points, just 2 1/3 points behind first-place Tallulah Academy. The junior high boys finished third with 29 points.