The Ord High School Cross Country teams continued their winning ways as they brought home the team title in the boys’ division of the Ainsworth invitational this last Thursday. “Our kids are running well right now”, Coach Derry Trampe commented. “It was a tight team race, and our guys did a good job of holding off Valentine runners in the end to claim the team title. As we move forward, we will need our fourth through sixth runners to close the gap between them and our third runner. Then that group will need to close the gap between them and our top two runners. When we do this, we will be a very good team.”
The boys scored 16 points to claim the team title. The meet featured Class D scoring by scoring the top 3 of the first 5 runners for each team. Valentine was a close second with 18 points while Boyd County finished in third with 25 points. Rounding out the team scoring were West Holt (28), North Central (55), Ainsworth (62), and Twin Loup, Sandhills/Thedford, and Burwell did not field enough runners to score as a team. “I like the way our boys are running right now”, Trampe stated. “They have been working well together in practice and our young runners are working to keep up with our top runners every day. This will only make us better by the end of the season.”
The girls finished in 6th place in the 9-team field with 61 points. Ainsworth ran away with the meet with a low score of 10 points while West Holt was second with 18 points. North Central finished in third with 19 points. Rounding out the team scoring were Burwell (50), Boyd County (56), Valentine (64), and Twin Loup and Sandhills/Thedford did not field enough runners to score as a team. “I felt like our girls ran as well as they could in the heat”, Coach Trampe noted. “They ran at probably the hottest time of the day, and it took its toll on them. We have some work to do but the talent is there to have a solid team by the time we get to the conference and district meets. We just need to get them to work together in a meet and pull each other along.”
The varsity boys brought home five medals from the meet. The top 20 in the varsity races were awarded medals. Garrett Severance and Elijah Pollard were the top finishers for the Chants again this week as they finished 3rd and 4th respectively in times of 18:44 and 18:54. “I was pleased with the efforts of all of our kids because we ran very close to or faster than the times we ran last week,” Coach Trampe said. “This course was longer than the St. Paul course and the conditions were tough on the runners. We need to use this experience to keep building for the rest of the season.” Grady Moudry, the final scoring runner, also finished in the top 10 as he placed 9th in a time of 20:00. The two pushers on the team both earned medals as well. Brodie Klimek finished 18th in a time of 21:07 and Gaavin Whited was 20th in a time of 21:37 to bring home medals. Other runners for the Chants included Brody Blair (22nd in 22:09), Skyler Probst (35th in 23:50), and Braden Bruha (39th in 24:55).
Izzy Jeffres brought home another medal for the season as she finished 14th in the race with a time of 25:31. Avery Bruha just missed the medals as she finished in 22nd place in a time of 29:00. Elisabeth Bengston rounded out the scoring as she finished 32nd in a time of 35:59. “Most of our girls ran faster this week than they did at the shorter St. Paul course last week”, Trampe said. “We have the potential to do a lot of good things before the year is over with our girls. We just need to stay healthy and keep working hard in practice.”
The junior high runners brought home a total of five medals on the day. Peyton Melnick had another good day and finished in 4th place in the field of 25 runners to earn a medal in the girls 1-mile race. Melnick covered the course in 7:03 to claim her medal. With only one runner, the girls could not score in the team race. For the boys Finn Reilly finished in second place with a time of 6:19 to earn his medal. Jacob Medina finished in 7th place in a time of 6:51 while Kyptan Scheideler and James Piskorski finished in 9th and 10th respectively to earn medals. Scheidler finished in 6:55 while Piskorski completed the race in 7:00. Also running for the Chants were Jaxson Edghill (13th in 7:19), Dakota Rogers (14th in 7:30), and Leo Wolf (23rd in 8:17). The junior high boys just missed winning the team title as they finished 2nd with 15 points and just 1 point behind North Central (14).