Daly Park south of Mapleton was the site of the Maple River Invite held on Sept. 11. The cross country meet was held under sunny skies with temperatures in the low 80s, 45 percent humidity and a slight breeze.

Girls Results

Several girls were unable to compete in the meet due to illness. Blue Earth Area’s two runners who did compete, Aubrey Woodwick and Sidney Eitzmann, each had strong races.

Woodwick ran to a 10th-place finish with a time of 23:53 while Sidney Eitzmann finished 16th in 24:36.

“They had to battle warmer than expected conditions and ran some strong races against tough competition,” BEA coach Peter Koenig said. “Aubrey dropped 10 seconds off her time from last year. It was Sidney’s first official 5K of the season and she dropped 37 seconds off her time from last year while passing three girls in the last mile.”

Springfield/Cedar Mountain won the team portion of the meet with 38 points followed by Jackson County Central with 51. Rounding out the top three places was Minnesota Valley Lutheran with 66 points.

Sakura Harding was the only Buccaneer girl competing in the junior high 1600-meter race. She crossed the line in 17th place while posting a time of 10:26 which was a few seconds better than her time from last year.

Boys Results

Minnesota Valley Lutheran captured first place for the boys with a team score of 29 points. Waterville-Elysian-Morristown was second with 57 and Springfield/Cedar Mountain was third with 64.

Devin Haase was once again the top finisher for BEA. The senior turned in a time of 20:37 to finish in 16th place.

“Devin had a great race,” Koenig commented. “He was able to improve his time from last year by 45 seconds.”

Oliver Ankeny had a season-best time of 22:33 to cross the finish line in 32nd place and Marcus Eckles was close behind with a time of 22:50 to finish in 35th place.

“Oliver continues to push himself,” Koenig shared. “Marcus dropped a massive 1:13 off his time from last year with a very impressive kick in the last 100 meters.”

Rounding out the Bucs’ team was Sam Bell, Eli Goshorn, Gus Ankeny and Michael Vaske.

Bell finished 44th in 24:07, Goshorn was 48th in 25:50, Ankeny was 55th in 28:15 and Vaske finished 57th in 28:41.

“Sam Bell ran a great race with solid form and passed seven people in the last mile,” Koenig said. “Eli and Gus, who are both new to the varsity racing scene threw down some solid times for new PRs and Michael had an admirable race as well.”

The Bucs had four boys run in the 1600-meter junior high race.

Gabe Petersen finished fourth in 8:52, Caleb Goshorn was seventh in 9:08, Jayden Gonzales was 18th in 10:31 and Jacob Hinkle was 19th in 10:32.

“We had lots of new racers in the junior high meet,” Koenig noted. “Jayden and Caleb both ran their first competitive mile and did awesome. Gabe entered the race with a strategy to get near the front and stay there which is exactly what he did.”

The Buccaneer cross country teams competed in Jackson on Thursday, Sept. 18. Look for the results of that meet in next week’s edition of the Faribault County Register.