Into about midseason of the cross country year and plenty of Kanzaland area runners are looking like they are in midseason form. Nemaha Valley played host at the Spring Creek golf course in Seneca, yesterday and eight other Kanzaland area schools were represented alongside the Raiders.

It was one school that stood out above the rest with a sweep of the team title crowns and a first place finish in the girl’s competition and a third in the boys; that was the Hiawatha Redhawks. The Redhawks soared to both teams crowns at the Nemaha Valley CC Invite. Hiawatha Redhawk, cross country coach, Mark Carter said after the meet that he was extremely proud of his team and great to see their hard work pay off.

Winning third competition of the year, Jordan Puvogel registered a time of 15:35.91 to snatch the win in Seneca beating out Audrey Schmitz of Axtell and Leah Murata of Horton who kept pace with Puvogel most of the race until Jordan pulled away at the end. Schmitz of Axtell, the current Kanzaland and mscsports.net girl “Athlete of the Week,” finished second on the day, while Murata of Horton took third. All three, put themselves ahead of the pace early and didn’t look back in the race.

Other highlights in the top 10 included, two Atchison runners, two ACCHS runners, another Redhawk, a Washington County Tiger and Nemaha Valley Raider. Coming in fourth place was ACCHS Tiger, Madison Bissell, she was followed by two Atchison Redmen in sisters, Hannah Jaloma (5^th) and Sarah Jaloma (6^th). Next the host school Nemaha Valley had a top 10 finisher, MiKayla Peterson take seventh; Hiawatha Redhawk, Kailey Davis finished eighth, Madison Stone of Washington County placed ninth and rounding out the top 10 was Tiffany Gillmore of ACCHS.

For the boys is was a familiar face in the Kanzaland area distance running competitions registering another race victory under his belt, that being Centralia Panther, Lukas Koch. Koch got out to an early lead in the 5K run and didn’t look back winning the race by over 30 seconds with a time of 17:06.66. The rest of the top five featured two Twin Valley League runners and a pair of Big Seven runners. Washington County Tiger, Dylan Hodgson placed second, Hiawatha’s Tyler Boeckman, one of three Redhawks in the top 10 finished third, while Tracy Schmitz of Axtell took fourth place and Nemaha Valley Raider, Colin Lierz placed fifth.

Hiawatha, who won both team crowns, had two more boys finish in the top 10.  After Boeckman at third, was Conner Winter and Baxter Defore placing sixth and seventh, respectively. The host Raiders placed another in the top 10, as Michael Sperfslage was eighth, Onaga’s, Michael Eisenbarth took ninth and Kaleb Swart of Nemaha Valley rounded out the top 10.

As the cross country season continues, the Kanzaland area runners look to make noise in their respective classes at state this year.

Check out pictures from the Nemaha Valley CC Invite (click here)
For full results of Nemaha Valley CC Invite (click here)