On their home course on Wednesday, the Lincoln-Sudbury cross country girls squad narrowly preserved their 4 1/2-year dual meet winning streak.  With the closest possible score, L-S defeated Dual County League rival Weston, 27-28, and outran Concord-Carlisle, 23-32.

Reminiscent of last week's race with Acton-Boxboro, the Warriors race started slowly in a large pack. At the 400-meter mark, L-S's Andrea Keklak and several Weston and C-C runners separated from the pack, and remained only seconds ahead going into the woods.

When the racers emerged from the woods, Keklak was 20 seconds ahead of three runners from Weston and one from C-C, who were followed by L-S's Marika Crowe.

Keklak extended her lead to more than 30 seconds to finish at 16:36, and Crowe surged to the finish and nearly overtook one of the Weston runners.  Since three Weston runners had finished before Crowe, L-S had to put another three across the line before any other Weston runners, to avoid a Weston win that would end the lengthy L-S winning streak.

Megan Broecker, Emily Knaul and Katie LaScalia came through for L-S, clinching the victory for L-S, but only 20 seconds ahead of Weston's fourth runner.

C-C also mounted a challenge to L-S, placing one runner between Keklak and Crowe, two more between Broecker and Knaul, and another runner a fraction of a second behind Katie LaScaleia in an exciting sprint to the finish.  However, C-C's places were insufficient to overcome L-S's point total of 23.