The Ord High School Cross Country teams competed in the Broken Bow Invitational this past Saturday on a great day for running a race. The Chanticleer girls did not field enough runners to score as a team while the boys finished in 6th place in the 18-team field. “It was kind of mixed bag for us in this meet”, Coach Derry Trampe stated. “We had some kids that recorded their best performances of the season and then others who were just a little behind their best times. I thought our girls ran very well this week and brought their times down a lot. We had half of our boys who took off more than a minute from their best time of the season so we had some good things happen, I just would have liked to have all our times drop off for the year. We worked hard this week, but we need to be preparing for the end of the season now. We have big meets coming up that we need to be ready for.”
The boys scored 106 points in the meet that features Class C scoring of the top 4 finishers and 6 runners per team. The defending state champions from Gothenburg won the team title with 14 points in a very competitive meet. North Platte St. Pat’s was the runner up with 28 points. Broken Bow was a distant third with 73 points while McCook and Doniphan-Trumbull finished 4th (85) and 5th (87) respectively. Rounding out the team scoring were: Cozad (115), Valentine (140), Hi-Line (176), South Loup (179), St. Paul (196), Ainsworth (220), Arcadia-Loup City (254), and Medicine Valley, Sandhills Valley, Brady, Maxwell, and Sandhills-Thedford did not field enough runners to score as a team.
Ainsworth took home the team title in the varsity girls race with 34 points. Right behind them was McCook with 34 points. Broken Bow finished in third place with 48 points. Rounding out the team scoring were: Gothenburg (72), Hi-Line (90), Doniphan-Trumbull (90), Valentine (108), and Ord, Brady, South Loup, Cozad, Sandhills Valley, North Platte St. Pat’s, St. Paul, Maxwell, Arcadia-Loup City, Medicine Valley, and Sandhills-Thedford did not field enough runners to score as a team.
Avery Bruha had her best race of the season and finished in 18th place to bring home a medal from the meet. Bruha covered the 5,000-meter course in a time of 23:46 to earn her medal. This time was nearly 3 minutes faster than her previous best time this year. Just missing out on a medal was Izzy Jeffres when she finished in 24th place in a time of 24:13. Her time was over a minute faster than her previous best time this season. Elisabeth Bengston also turned in her best performance of the season when she finished in 63rd place in a time of 31:37. Bengston took over 4 minutes off her previous best time. “I was very pleased with the way our girls competed in this meet”, Coach Trampe said. “It was great to see them drop their times down like they did this week and now we just need to continue bringing those times down.”
The Chanticleer boys had two medal winners in the meet in Elijah Pollard and Garret Severance. Pollard earned his medal by finishing 14th in a season-low time of 18:16. This was about 20 seconds below his previous best time. Severance got the last medal when he finished 20th in a time of 18:58. “Elijah and Garret continue to work hard in practice and meets”, Trampe said. “Elijah had his best race of the season while Garret was off a little today. They got out like they needed to and now we need to learn how to hold that pace through the last part of the race. I look for both to break the 18-minute barrier soon and then chase 17 minutes.” The other two scoring members for the team were Grady Moudry and Brody Blair. Moudry finished in 34th place in a season-best time of 19:39 while Blair was 45th in a season best time of 20:10. Moudry took 20 seconds off his previous best time while Blair dropped his time by 2 minutes. “Grady has been a consistent performer for us this year and I am happy to see his times coming down”, Coach Trampe stated. “Brody had a very good day, and he is starting to find out what he can do after recovering from an early season injury. We just need to have them close the gap on Elijah and Garret to push us over the top in the conference and district meets later this year.” Pushers for the team were Brodie Klimek and Gavin Whited. Klimek was right behind Blair as he finished 47th in 20:12 which was his best time of the season by 35 seconds. Whited had his best performance of the season as well by finishing 53rd in a time of 20:46. His time was nearly 50 seconds faster than he has run all season. “It is great to see our times coming down like they are, but we do need to close the gap on each other”, Trampe noted. “Brodie found another gear today and Gavin is just getting better every week. These guys are practicing hard and that is why they are seeing steady improvement.” Also competing for the boys were Braden Bruha and Skyler Probst. Like the rest of the team, both lowered their season best time. Bruha finished 60th in 21:02 which was 2 minutes lower than his previous best. Probst was 81st in a time of 22:53 about a minute faster than his best time this season. “Overall, I am pleased with the way the kids performed in this meet. We can have two good teams by the end of the season if we keep everyone healthy”, Trampe said.
The junior high runners did not bring home any medals from the meet but still ran solid races. In the girls’ race, Peyton Melnick finished in 22nd place in a time of 7:39. In the boys’ race Finn Reilly just missed winning a medal when he finished 11th in a time of 6:20 over the 1-mile course. Jacob Medina was 31st in 7:01 while Jason Edghill was 33rd in 7:05. James Piskorski and Kyptan Scheideler finished 39th and 40th respectively in 7:10 and 7:12. Leo Wolf was 51st in 7:48 and Dakota Rogers was 54th in 7:57. Seventy-two runners competed in the boys’ race while 50 girls ran in the race at this meet. As a team the junior high boys finished in 7th place with 94 points.