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ROUND ROCK -- Southlake Carroll junior Courtney Kriegshauser threw her mud-covered arms around coach Justin Leonard's neck and began to cry when Leonard told her the official results of Saturday's UIL state cross country meet at Old Settlers Park.

And in the exact same place were Kriegshauser felt the shock and disappointment of a third-place team finish a year earlier, the junior felt the joy and excitement of finally winning the gold medal with a team score of 34.

"When we finished the race we didn't know for sure, so it was just that feeling of relief that we finally did it," Kriegshauser said. "We thought we did, then when [Leonard] told me I just kind of lost it."

Kriegshauser, one of two Dragons juniors, finished second in the race with a time of 11:23.55, 11 seconds behind 5A individual state champ Karis Jochen of College Station A&M Consolidated.

"I told her I was proud of her," Leonard said of Kriegshauser. "We knew she could do it. The biggest thing was getting her to believe she could do it. Now she knows she can win the big meets."

After last year's state meet, the boys' and girls' teams both made a pact that they would do whatever it took to win it all this year. It was a pact they took very seriously.

"Neither team wavered from the plan and the goal," Leonard said. "Come hell or high water the kids were going to come out and win today."

Roughly 20 minutes after the girls won gold, the Dragons boys not only won the gold medal for the first time in school history, but also set a 5A boys state record with a final score of 20 points.

"After the race someone said that we unofficially had 20 points, which is a record," senior Ben Golestan said. "It feels incredible because that was the goal going in, to break the record."

After finishing second in last year's meet, the Dragons had five runners in the top 10 to win the gold by 90 points over second-place Houston Strake Jesuit.

"It feels so much better than last year," junior and fifth-place finisher Nate Sullivan said. "The difference from winning first and second is huge."

Leonard and both teams expected a rowdy bus ride home.

"If [the girls] hadn't won, the bus ride back would have been really awkward," Golestan said laughing.

Other finalists

The Keller Timber Creek boys finished fifth and the girls finished seventh. Boerne Champion won the 4A boys state title, and Highland Park won the 4A girls title.

Individually, Saginaw Boswell senior Maggie Escobar finished fifth in the Class 4A girls race. Burleson's Jessica Prickett was ninth. In 4A boys, Boswell senior Nava Arturo was 10th. Brittany Adams of Fort Worth Castleberry was sixth in 3A girls, and Kevin Nunez of Alvarado eighth in 3A boys.