Oskaloosa XC Competes At The Knoxville Invitational
Brooke VanHouweling had another strong performance finishing in 2nd place with a time of 16:05 (photo by Rob Hammann)
The Oskaloosa cross country teams competed in the Knoxville Invitational on Tuesday. Brooke VanHouweling had another strong performance finishing in 2nd place with a time of 16:05. She was followed by Paige Walter in 22nd (17:42), Lesley Roquet 25th (17:53), Riley Berg 31st (18:31) and Meghan Toubekis 39th (19:20). Alina Nettesheim rounded out the varsity team with a 42nd place finish (19:36). As a team, the girls scored 119 points to finish in 4th place in the 11-team field. “I was very happy with the performances tonight. I thought we ran well as a team and made more progress in terms of racing against people. Our times as a team are continuing to improve. The course tonight was a challenging one and thought the times were a little slower than last week, our progress as a team is continuing to strengthen. Brooke is running very well, Paige and Lesley as well. Kelsey Roquet has been a little under the weather and when we get her back healthy we should have a really strong top 4, with 3 or 4 other girls working to solidify the final 3 varsity spots.
Skylar DeJong led the boys varsity effort finishing in 6th place in a time of 16:51. Spencer DeJong was 19th (17:51), Jared Boggess 34th (18:50), Alex Hyland 41st (19:06), and Gerrit VanMannen 46th (19:37). Rounding out the varsity were Jared Buckallew in 47th (19:42 and Logan Ashman (20:57). In the team race, the Osky team finished in 6th place in the 12-team field with 146 points. Skylar and Spencer continue to be our leaders and ran well, but I thought Spencer ran especially well tonight. As a team we continue to improve, our top 4 runners seems pretty set, but we are still looking for who is going to be our best 5-6-7 runners. There are at least 4, maybe 5 boys fighting for those spots, and as they improve our team will get stronger. I am happy with the effort tonight. We are improving on a daily basis.
I thought that the efforts by the JV runners tonight was very strong. They have been working very hard each day and I see lots of improvement happening. Kamron VanHulzen was the top boy running a time of 19:57. Kamron has been working very hard in practice and it was good to see his efforts pay off tonight. He was just ahead of Logan Gross who ran a time of 20:06. Logan has shown lots of improvement this year and is going to get better. The JV boys were 6th of 6-teams with a score of 160 poionts. Gabi Boxler had a strong showing on the girls side tonight. She has been battling an injury and I thought she looked real strong today. Cheyenne Glandon also had a strong performance running a 19:59. This was Cheyennes first race of the year and she was excited to finally get to compete. She did a great job. Our entire JV squad has been running hard and showing improvement each day. The JV girls were 4th of 4 teams with 101 points.
The middle school teams ran as well with the boys team finishing 5th out of 7 teams with a score of 123 points. Brady DeJong led the way finishing in 7th place with a time of 11:20 over the 3k course. Colton Berg also cracked the top 10 finishing in 9th place with a time of 11:50. Rogan Scutca finished 32nd, Garrett Gilliland was 37th, Aaron Bowie 38th and Spencer Nelson 40th. The boys did a nice job tonight. They are learning to race and to run hard when they are tired and are making great progress.
The middle school girls finished 3rd of 4 teams with 63 points. They placed 3 girls in the top 10 led by Sienna DeJong in 3rd, Bailey Blythe in 8th and Melissa Moorman in 10th place. These 3 are a good strong nucleus and are good leaders. Lexi Randau also ran a strong race finishing in 19th. Breyanna Hill edged out Melanie Harvey with a strong finish. All of our girls ran well. They keep improving each week and are making each other better with their efforts. They are becoming more aggressive each time out.
Next week the Indians are in action at Centerville.
Girls
Pella 31
Indianola 51
Centerville 104
Osky 119
Knoxville 120
Lynnville-Sully 151
Newton 166
Pella Christian 202
Boys
Pella 19
Knoxville 62
Indianola 74
Centerville 112
Newton 138
Osky 146
Lynnville-Sully 216
Pella Christian 217
Twin Cedars 238
Chariton 259
