The Southlake Carroll girls cross country team won its protest of the team scoring at the UIL state meet and was awarded the 5A state championship Monday, two days after the race.

A chip-timing error affecting Carroll's No. 5 runner, Lucia Xiong, gave the team four more points than it should have, UIL athletic coordinator and meet director Peter Contreras said Monday evening. Xiong actually finished 54th overall and 31st in team scoring with a time of 12 minutes, 31.10 seconds, not 58th and 35th at 12:35.35.

Carroll, with 70 points, was declared the state champion for the third consecutive year and Kingwood, with 74 points, became runner-up. Carroll was initially declared runner-up to Kingwood when both teams finished with 74 points; Kingwood was given the tiebreaker because its No. 6 runner was 44th and Carroll's 47th.

Carroll coach Robert Ondrasek filed a protest immediately following the race Saturday at Old Settlers Park in Round Rock. The UIL had up to 48 hours following the conclusion of the meet to correct clerical or team scoring errors, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations rules for cross country.

UIL officials reviewed the organization's videotape of the race Monday and scored the race by hand. The tape clearly revealed where the error occurred.

"There are two pads that you have to go over at the finish line to detect the chip, and the first pad didn't get the time of our girl going through," Ondrasek said of Xiong, who had a computer chip attached to each shoe. "The second pad did, so therefore it threw off the times.

"It's happened before and we don't know why, but what the UIL did is went back through the race individual by individual and did it by hand, which is what Kingwood wanted done and what we wanted done."

Of the sports that use timing devices for results (cross country, track and swimming), this is the first instance in which a championship had to be overturned, UIL public information director Kim Rogers said.

Kingwood coach Christie Burleson and Ondrasek were both in Austin as the matter was being resolved. Burleson said she was blindsided by the protest – she found out about it on the Internet on Sunday and had it confirmed through a phone call from Ondrasek, not the UIL – but accepted the UIL's ruling.

"The girls are, of course, sad and I'm sad, but the right thing was done," Burleson said. "Coach Ondrasek was fighting for his girls. I would have done the same thing."

Contreras, the meet director, said that videotape was available Saturday but that the protest could not be ruled on immediately because it involved so many runners.

"I'll be reviewing this last meet and making some post-meet assessments and seeing the things we can do differently to make sure this doesn't happen again, or if it does happen again, maybe resolve it in a more timely matter," he said.

Ondrasek, while worried about the emotions of both schools' athletes, was relieved that the UIL took such careful steps to determine the correct results. "This whole thing is about doing what's right for kids and making it fair and true," he said.