ONTARIO-Brookwood will host the Scenic Bluffs cross country championships Thursday at 5 p.m.

The host Falcons are the favorites to repeat as the girls champion.

But Hillsboro has the defending SBC champion, sophomore Annie Haas back in the lineup after missing much of the year with an injury.

Haas, a 2014 state qualifier and the reigning Scenic Bluffs Conference individual champion, finished 27th overall out of 138 runners in her return two weeks ago at Platteville. She also medaled with a seventh-place finish in the small schools division with a time of 21:48.

Senior Destiny Shore and freshman Paige Stull are also favorites to earn all-conference honors for the Hillsboro girls.

On the boys’ side, Hillsboro head coach Ben Leis expects the boys’ race at the conference meet to also be a battle between his Tigers and the host Falcons.

“The boys’ conference meet will be one of the best conference battles I have seen in a long time,” said Leis. “We have raced Brookwood six times and we are at and even split at three a piece. One of the meets we actually tied but won on the sixth runner tie-breaker.

“The kicker here is the conference meet is held at Brookwood, and they flat out smoked us there. Brookwood runs very well on their course and they guys are going to have to expect them to race like that again [Thursday].”

Junior Zach O’Hair and senior Skyler Fisher earned All-SBC honors at last year’s conference meet.

“The guys can run in any order but lately Jason Grifiths and Drew Bisarek, both sophomores, have emerged as our third and fourth runners,” added Leis.