For the first time in five years, Oxford’s cross country program has a state championship team.

Led by Luke Johnson, the Chargers boys team won their first Class 6A title at Choctaw Trails in Jackson on Saturday, the program’s first since winning the 5A title in 2016. Oxford won with 86 points, beating out runner-up Tupelo’s 104 points. Oak Grove (109 points), Pearl (116) and Madison Central (137) rounded out the top five.

Johnson took home the individual 6A title, winning the race with a time of 15 minutes, 54.19 seconds. He beat Tupelo’s JaHeim Bridges by a little over two seconds to give Oxford their second consecutive individual 6A title after Chase Rose won in 2020 by 25 seconds.

The top five finishers for Oxford were scored, with all of them finishing no worse than 31st. Behind Johnson was Matthew Singletary in 13th with a time of 16:43.94, Bailey Kosko in 17th (16:53.19), Ethan Knight in 24th (16:59.81) and Andrew Baeshen in 31st (17;19.22).

In the 6A girls state meet, Oxford finished 8th overall with 190 points. Ocean Springs took the state championship with 28 points while Hernando (48), Pearl (139), Lewisburg (152) and Tupelo (153) rounded out the top five.

Maggie Irwin paced Oxford with the top finish, coming in 11th with a time of 20:18.90. Sparkle Caldwell came in 19th (21:03.57) while Liana Logan came in 36th (21:37.77), Jane Singletary came in 54th (22:18.87) and Payton Tulchinsky came in 70th (23:06.98) to round out the Chargers top scorers.

Lafayette competes in the Class 5A state title meet on Monday.