Highland boys win Class A at Fairfield Invite

The Highland boys? cross-country team won the A division at Thursday?s Fairfield Invite at Waterworks Park.

The Huskies totaled 47 points, edging Wapello by three points. Senior Matt Eden took third place in 17:35 to lead Highland, and sophomore Evan Mahler crossed the finish line 23 seconds later in fourth place. Junior Josh Brase placed 10

^th

in 18:43, and senior Zach Popham came in 12

^th

in 18:58. Senior Luke Mahler?s 18

^th

-place finish in 19:50 rounded out the scoring. Juniors Austin McCarthy and David Strabala finished 23

^rd

and 24

^th

, respectively.

Highland sophomores Amber Bean and Bridget Murphy finished 24 and 26

^th

, respectively, in the girls? A division race. Bean clocked a time of 20 minutes flat, and Murphy crossed the finish line two seconds later.

The IMS boys? and girls? cross-country teams both took fourth place in the A division.

The IMS boys were in a close four-way race for third place behind Highland and Wapello. Pekin totaled 108 points to edge IMS by one point for third place. Winfield-Mt. Union, which totaled 113 points, finished one point ahead of Danville-New London in fifth place.

IMS senior Cody Miller ran a career-best time of 18:04 to take fifth place. Sophomore Kirby Shetler, who ran with Miller for much of the race, came in seventh. Shetler?s time of 18:15 was over a minute faster than his time on the Waterworks Park course last year.

Jacob Valov, Jacob Schmieder and Richard Deming all recorded personal-best times in their second-ever cross-country competition. Valov finished 25

^th

in 20:35, and Schmieder came in 33

^rd

in 21:42. Deming finished 39

^th

in 25:47, cutting a whopping five minutes off of his time from last week?s IMS Early Bird.

Sophomore Kobi Russom also showed improvement. He came in 40

^th

in 27:07, finishing a minute and a half faster than last year. Junior Andy Fang finished 20

^th

in the junior varsity race, which included runners from both the A and AA divisions, crossing the finish line in 20:50.

The IMS girls totaled 143 points and finished fourth out of five teams. Sophomore Renee Buckwalter took 11

^th

place in 18:27, and sophomore Riley Schmieder came in 18

^th

in 19:14. Senior Camila Segar finished 35

^th

in 23:12, and freshman Summer Schrock was 39

^th

in 25:53. Foreign exchange student Alvard Mamikonyan?s 40

^th

-place finish in 25:53 rounded out the scoring.