“Highway 63 Showdown” Has Osky Once Again Holding Both Trophies
Oskaloosa Indians
by Keith Comfort
The Oskaloosa cross country teams opened the season with the “Highway 63 Showdown” against Eddyville-Blakesburg held this year at Eddyville-Blakesburg High School. Oskaloosa retained possession of both the girls and boys trophies, sweeping both races, along with the individual crowns.
On the girls side, Oskaloosa took 7 of the top 8 spots, with freshman bailey Blythe winning the 4k race in a time of 16:44. Kelsey and Lesly Roquet were 3rd and 4th with times of 18:38 and 18:41, Melanie Harvey was 5th with a time of 19:04 and Brey Hill rounded out the top 5 for Osky with a time of 19:49. “I thought the girls did a marvelous job for the first race of the season. Alex Koenig, Natalie Whitis and Julia Coniglio also ran very well. We didn’t come in to practice in the best of condition, but have progressed steadily. We have a good stable of freshman girls this year to go along with the Roquet girls and there is a lot of potential on this team. All 14 girls ran really well, especially given the hot weather. Bailey was outstanding in leading the race from start to finish. She is a good one. She will have a lot of help from the other girls. It is a fairly young, but talented team.”
On the boys side Oskaloosa squeezed out a 24-32 win. Skylar and Spencer DeJong ran 1-2 with Skylar winning the 5k race in a time of 17:11 with Spencer running 18:04. Kamron VanHulzen was 4th in 19:36, Garret VanMaanen 8th in 20:26 and Jared Buckallew 9th in 20:35. Graeme Kuba and Caleb Fisher rounded out the Indian top 7. “Like the girls, I though the boys had a solid first race. We are still rounding into condition, but are making progress. We need to do a better job of racing and not just sitting in a position, but that will come with time. We had a couple of boys running their first cross country race and they all did well. We ran 10 boys and they all did a great job. We’re still pretty young with only 1 junior boy and the rest are freshmen and sophmores. It is always a challenge to run in the heat and they survived in fine shape.”
A list of individual times follows.
Next up is the SE Polk Invitational on Tuesday.
Osky – Eddyville dual meet 23-Aug
Skylar DeJong 10 1 17:11.0
Spencer DeJong 10 2 18:04.0
Kamron VanHulzen 10 4 19:36.0
Gerrit VanMaanen 10 8 20:26.0
Jared Buckallew 10 9 20:35.0
Graeme Kuba 11 10 21:02.0
Caleb Fisher 10 21:25.0
Logan Gross 10 24:05.0
Johannes Hartman 10 24:24.0
Devion Versendaal 9 28:21.0
Bailey Blythe 9 1 16:44.0
Kelsey Roquet 11 3 18:38.0
Lesley Roquet 11 4 18:41.0
Melanie Harvey 9 5 19:06.0
Brey Hill 9 6 19:49.0
Alex Koenig 9 7 19:52.0
Natalie Whitis 12 20:25.0
Julia Coniglio 9 20:32.0
Riley Berg 11 21:01.0
Lauren Gorski 10 22:17.0
Meghan Toubekis 12 22:39.0
Brooke Beers 12 22:43.0
Angela Hyland 12 23:05.0
Morgane Cloesen 12 23:43.0
