Ten area teams came together in Seneca at Spring Creek golf course to race at the Nemaha Valley cross country invitational on Thursday (September 26th) and it was one school highlighting the action with a dominating performance on the boys and girls side, both.

Both the Hiawatha Red Hawk girls and boys teams had tremendous performances for both their girls and boys teams to take home first place.

In the girls competition it was the junior, Jordan Puvogel once again doing was she does best and that is racing her way out front of the competition and cruised to a win registering a time of 16:27.50 to take first, finishing 1:27 better than the second place finisher. Puvogel was on joined by three of her Red Hawk teammates in the top 10, as Molly Kettler took home third (18:11.70), Mykah Barnes placed fifth (18:46.00) and Makenna Gilpin grabbed eighth place (18:53.00). Rounding out the team scoring for Hiawhatha was Katie Rosa who placed 13th on the day (19:38.50), helping the Red Hawks tallying 27 points to take first place by a 20 points margin in the girls competition.

On the boys side it was much of the same for the Red Hawks as four runner’s registered top 10 finishes with Jesse Quinn leading the way taking home second place. Quinn's teammates followed him up in the top 10 with a fifth, ninth and tenth place performance coming at the hands of Brandt Houk (19:21.30), Tyler Boeckman (19:53.80) and Beau Oldridge (19:59.20), respectively. Brendan Steele around out the team score for Hiawatha registering a 16th place performance (20:36.30) to give the Red Hawks 42 points, finishing 36 points ahead of the second place team.

ACCHS had the second best girl’s team performance of the day and were led by a second place performance at the hands of Madison Bissell who ran to the time of 17:54.50, beating out third place by over 17 seconds. Fellow Tiger, Beba Scholz also grabbed a top 10 performance taking home sixth place with a time of 18:53.00, while Madison Forbes nabbed a tenth place finish (19:15.10) for the Tigers.

Second place team honors on the boys side went to the Wetmore Cardinals who continued to ride momentum from their last meet as three guys finished in the top 10. Josh Ballenger led the Cardinals on the day taking home a third place finish behind a time of 19:11.90. Aaron Achten and Jeremy Hoelscher race their way to seventh and eighth place finishes for the Cardinals with times of 19:25.70 and 19:45.20, respectively.

Axtell, Onaga, Nemaha Valley and Atchison all registered at least one individual top 10 performance on the day, too.

For the Eagles of Axtell there day was highlighted by Tracy Schmitz in the boys competition who raced his way to his first win of the season behind a time of 18:24.40, nearly 32 seconds better than second place.

The Onaga Buffalos took home two girls top 10 performances as Maggie Revell placed fourth (18:12.20) and Alexis VanDonge placed seventh (18:54.10). On the boys side it was Michael Eisenbarth highlighting the action for the Buffalos nabbing a fourth place finish (19:12.40).

The host Raiders of Nemaha Valley saw their day highlighted by Colin Lierz who took home sixth place in the boy’s competition behind a time of 19:23.40.

While the Lady Red of Atchison saw Lyndi Hanson finish ninth in the girls competition with a time of 19:07.50.

Overall all 10 area teams competing at the Nemaha Valley Invite had some strong performances with some having multiple top performers. Teams and individual runners will look to build upon their performances as they progress in the season.

Full 2013 Nemaha Valley Cross Country Invite Results -- click here