Cross Country Teams Run at Norfolk Catholic Invite
By Emma Risinger
On Friday, Sept. 8, cross country ran at the Norfolk Catholic Invitational, hosted at Skyview Lake.
The varsity boys team came in 6th, however, JV boys did not place, and neither of the girls teams were able to place due to too many runners being out.
On varsity, Kyle Abler finished in 12th place with a time of 18:28.91.
Abler remarked on his performance at the meet, and gave his thoughts on the team, “Overall, for my standards, I think I did pretty well. I think I should’ve had a better kick at the end, but that’s always. Team standards, on the boys side of it we’re more consistent,” he continued. “Sure we had our top guys in the teens, but we weren’t in the placing standards this week. We need to move our guys, getting closer to those placements so we can be better points wise.”
Following were Kendall Shada in 18th, running in 18:47.35, and Elijah Streff in 19th clocking in at 18:49.28. Carl Vogt placed 40th overall and was timed 20:34.19. Additionally, Bo Bockelman placed 54th and came in at 21:28.62.
On boys JV, Maxwell Weber was 11th and gauged at 21:11.90, and Zakary Abler came in 16th and finished at 21:38.36.
Head Coach Gary Shada comments on the day's events when he says, “Our performance on Friday was kind of a mixed bag. Some runners performed very well; they ran some very good races. They stayed mentally focused and locked in the entire time, and others got to certain stages of the race where they let the combination of the course and competition break them.”
As for the varsity girls team, Taydym Koch led in 24th with 24:12.55 as her ending time. Amelia Ahlers rounded out in 44th running the course in 25.51.66.
Moving forward, G. Shada went on to explain the biggest challenges for the team to work on. “We need to become mentally stronger as an entire group and let our training do the work for us, and they need to become more confident and let that carry them through, and eventually we will be able to put together an entire team race.”
Bluejay cross country runners will compete in their next meet at O’Neill on Friday, Sept. 15, with race time at 3:30 p.m.
