The Ord High School Cross Country teams hosted their own invitational on Friday on a perfect day for a cross country race. “We had a great day for a race with the mild temperatures, low winds, and cloud cover”, Coach Derry Trampe stated. “As a result, we had some outstanding times again this week. When compared to last year most of our kids ran a minute or more faster. We are really showing a lot of improvement these past few weeks and I am excited to see how we finish out the year.”
The Ord boys ran away with the team title and had four runners finish in the top twenty and earn medals. The Chanticleers scored 24 points to easily distance themselves from Wood River who finished second with 42 points. Gibbon was a very close third with 42 points. Rounding out the team scores were: West Holt (48), Ainsworth (78), Arcadia-Loup City (103), and Fullerton, Riverside, Sandhills-Thedford, Twin Loup, Ansley-Litchfield, Ravenna, and St. Edward did not field enough runners to score as a team.
Ainsworth took home the top spot in the girls’ team race with a low score of 19 points. West Holt finished as the runner-up with 27 points. Ravenna finished in third with 47 points while Fullerton was fourth with 52 points. Teams that did not field enough runners to score as a team were Ord, Wood River, Gibbon, Arcadia-Loup City, Riverside, Sandhills-Thedford, Twin Loup, Ansley-Litchfield, and St. Edward.
Avery Bruha and Izzy Jeffres both finished in the top 15 to bring home medals from the meet. Bruha finished 14th in a time of 22:59 while Jeffres was 15th in 23:06. Both girls ran their personal best times in this meet. “It is great to see our girls continue to run faster every time we have a meet”, Coach Trampe stated. “I am very pleased with the progress they have made and by the work they are putting in during practice. If we continue to improve like we are right now, we could have some really good things happen by the end of the season.” Elisabeth Bengston also had a personal best performance in the meet. Bengston finished the race in 34th place in a time of 30:22. “Elisabeth has really dropped her times from the start of the season”, Trampe said. “She has an opportunity to break the 30-minute barrier before the end of season. I have been pleased with her efforts in our past three meets.”
The four scoring boys all finished in the top 20 to earn medals in the meet. Elijah Pollard finished in 3rd place and Garret Severance was right behind him in 4th place. Pollard completed the 5,000-meter course in 18:02 while Severance finished in 18:03. “Elijah and Garret have been our leaders all season and they continue to run hard in both practice and meets”, Trampe said. “They have been great leaders for our team and their performances in our meets show that. We need to have them continue to improve every week to give us an opportunity to make it to the state meet.” Grady Moudry had the best race of his career when he finished 9th in the meet in a time of 18:50. Brodie Klimek was the final scoring runner for the team as he finished 18th in a time of 19:45. “It was great to see Grady in the top 10 at the meet and to get his time below 19 minutes”, Trampe said. “Brodie was under 20 minutes for the second straight week, and I am very encouraged by the progress he is making. We need to have them keep improving and closing the gap on the top two runners for us to be successful as the season starts to wind down.” The pushers for the team this week were Skyler Probst and Gavin Whited. This was the first time Probst was one of the pushers for our team. “Skyler ran the best race of his life, and I am proud of what he was able to accomplish”, Trampe noted. “He has been working hard all season and I am glad to see it pay off for him. Gavin has become a consistent performer for us this season and has been a nice addition to our team.” Probst just missed the medals when he finished 21st in a personal best time of 19:58. Whited was 24th in a time of 20:10. Also competing in the meet were Braden Bruha and Brody Blair. Bruha finished in 28th place in 20:44 while Blair was 32nd in 21:23. “Braden has dropped his times a lot in the last few weeks”, Trampe stated. “He is consistently running under 21 minutes and is working very hard in practice. Brody had a tough day at this meet. He has run better in previous meets and we need to get him back to those types of performances.”
The junior high teams had a very successful day as well when they brough home a total of five medals. Peyton Melnick finished in 7th place in the field of 41 runners in a time of 8:45. Finn Reilly was the top finisher for the junior high boy’s race. Reilly finished second in the race in a time of 7:10 over the 2,000-meter course. Jaxon Edghill finished in 6th place in time of 7:41 while Jacob Medina and Kyptan Scheideler finished 8th and 10th respectively. Medina covered the course in 7:52 while Scheideler ran the race in 7:56. James Piskorski just missed the medals by placing 12th in a time of 8:01. Leo Wolf was 22nd in 8:48 and Dakota Rogers was 26th in the field of 43 runners in a time of 9:01. The junior high boys won the team title with a low score of 16 points. North Central was second with 34 points.