The Thomas Jefferson girls cross county team will make the familiar drive across the mountains to the Tri-Cities Friday afternoon. The Raiders qualified for the Class 4A State Cross Country Championships Saturday with a fourth-place finish at the Westside Classic at the American Lake Golf Course.

The finish earned the Raiders the automatic berth to the state championships, which will be held at Sun Willows Golf Course in Richland. It will be Jefferson’s 10th trip to the state meet in the past 11 years.

The 2011 edition of the TJ girls was led by Leah Kiyohara. The senior finished up in 16th-place overall in a time of 19:44.5 over the 5-kilometer course at American Lake.

Mount Rainier’s Jordan McPhee (18:12.1) won the race ahead of Union’s Alexis Fuller (18:44.8). Bellarmine Prep won the team title with 77 points, two points ahead of Tahoma. Puyallup finished third, just ahead of TJ.

Senior Amanda Ditzhazy was 30th overall in 20:21.7, Ahnika Hendrickson was 40th in 20:46.4 and Vanessa Church was 43rd overall in 20:49.0.

The entire Jefferson team will be joined at the state meet by one runner each from Federal Way and Todd Beamer. The top-eight teams and top-40 individual finishers from the Westside Classic meet Saturday advanced to the state championships.

Federal Way’s Khiana Duncan finished 21st overall in a time of 20:06.2 and Beamer freshman Paige Hallstrom was right behind in 22nd in a time of 20:06.7.

Decatur senior Tori Zellerhoff was also impressive during the Class 3A Westside Classic district meet at American Lake. Zellerhoff finished in seventh-place overall in the race in a time of 19:20.8. Camas’ Alexa Efraimson won the 3A race in 18:09.4. Zellerhoff was the lone Decatur runner to compete at the district championships.

On the boys’ side, the Todd Beamer boys will also be running at the state meet. The Titans finished up in sixth place overall at the Westside Classic. Gig Harbor won the Class 4A district championship with 39 total team points. Puyallup was second, followed by Tahoma and Bellarmine Prep.

Auburn Riverside’s Korey Krotzer ran away with the 4A individual championship in an impressive time of 15:30.3, over 28 seconds in front of Gig Harbor’s Wolfgang Beck.

Beamer was led by freshman Austin Jex, who finished in 19th place in the race in 16:35.7. Sophomore Hoftom Tafere was 21st overall in 16:38.9, junior Ishiah Belle was 33rd in 16:53.6 and sophomore Blake Hansen was 40th in 17:07.0.

Thomas Jefferson ended up in 13th place as a team and will be sending Yohan Gebrehiwet to the state championships. The junior finished in 35th place overall in a time of 16:54.2.