Sidney Eitzmann trimmed 33 seconds off of her previous best time when she competed in the Big South Conference Meet on Oct. 17.

The Big South Conference Championship for cross country was held on Tuesday, Oct. 17, at the Marshall Country Club.

“It was a beautiful day with clear skies and temperatures in the upper 50s,” Blue Earth Area coach Peter Koenig said. “It was a great day for running.”

The BSC is divided into two divisions, large and small schools, for cross country with five schools competing in the large school division and seven schools making up the small school division.

The Bucs competed in the small school division.

Girls Results

The lady Bucs were able to field a complete team for only the second or third time this season and edged out Windom for sixth place with 143 points. Redwood Valley placed first with 25 points and Luverne was the runner-up with 65.

Aubrey Woodwick earned All-Conference honorable mention honors with a 12th place finish in 21:21.9. Woodwick’s teammate, Sidney Eitzmann, was less than a minute behind with a time of 22:10.4 to finish in 17th place.

“Aubrey shaved 12 seconds off her personal record from last season,” Koenig commented. “Sidney trimmed a solid 33 seconds off of her personal record to barely miss All-Conference honors with her 17th-place finish.”

Natalie Griffey set a personal record with a time of 23:14.7 which put her in 26th place.

“Natalie was running only her third 5K race ever,” Koenig said. “She dropped another 10 seconds off of last week’s time.”

Leah Becker was 49th with a season-best time of 27:18.6 and Myla Eastman was 50th in 33:31.0.

“Leah had a good pack to run with and seemed to enjoy the competition while running her best race of the season,” Koenig observed. “Myla toughed through a hard race, but finished to give the girls a full team.”

Boys Results

Redwood Valley made it a sweep with a first place finish in the boys race. Their point total of 39 was 17 points better than Luverne’s total of 56.

Brady Lorenz topped the BEA runners with a personal record time of 18:36.9 to finish 25th. Devin Haase had his best time of the season at 20:21.0 to finish in 35th place.

“There was some heavy competition from some very serious schools. It was a very fast field,” Koenig said. “Brady used the fast pace to his advantage and set a new personal record by 17 seconds while Devin ran his best race of the season and got down into the 20s again.”

Seth Mathews, Owen Jahnke and Marcus Eckles ran in a pack and finished 40th, 41st and 42nd, respectively. Mathews had a season-best time of 22:22.3, Jahnke set a personal record with a time of 22:27.3 and Eckles finished in 22:38.1.

“All three of those guys ran hard and pushed themselves all the way to the end,” Koenig shared.

Rounding out the BEA runners were Oliver Ankeny, Jason Casey, Gibson Haase and Manav Chaudhari. Ankeny finished 48th with a time of 23:49.2, Casey was 49th in 25:16.1, Haase was 50th in 25:20.9 and Chaudhari was 51st in 27:29.9.

Next up for the cross country teams is the Section Meet which will be held on Thursday, Oct. 26. Norwood Young America will host the meet at Baylor Park.