Oskaloosa Cross Country Competes In Grinnell Invitational
Oskaloosa Indians
Grinnell, Iowa – Oskaloosa competed in Grinnell at the Grinnell Invitational. On a cool afternoon, the Indians made great strides of improvement in comparison to their previous meet. Skylar DeJong led the way for the Indians with a 5th place finish in a time of 16:52. He was followed by Spencer DeJong in 18:02, Jared Boggess in 19:20, Alex Hyland in 20:04 and Gerrit VanMaanen in 20:58. Logan Ashman and Kamron VanHulzen rounded out the varsity 7 tonight. I thought that the team ran really well. We lost both meets last week due to poor weather and really needed to run a meet to see where we are at fitness wise. I was quite pleased with the results tonight. We have a pretty young boys team and it is important to get some races under their belts. Although this is not a real challenging course, the kids attacked it and ran some nice times. Our top three or four looked pretty good, but we will need to get some improvement from the 5 to 7 positions if we are going to be more competitive. We have about 5 kids that are fighting for those spots right now and if will be a competitive battle throughout the season. Jared Buckallew led the JV squad with a 20:43 effort. Other JV runners were Greg Comstock (21:34), Logan Gross (21:36), David Anderson (22:13) and Cole Oscarson (26:23). As a team, the Indians finished in 8th place on the 13-team field with 216 points.
Brooke VanHouweling led the girls with a 5th place finish with a time of 16:04. She was followed by Lesley Roquet in 17:36, Paige Walter in 17:49, Kelsey Roquet in 18:30 and Riley Berg in 19:21. Other varsity runners for the Indians were Natalie Whitis and Gabi Boxler. Brooke had a strong performance tonight. I was extremely happy with the way she ran. We need her to have a strong season for us. Lesley had a great night as well, running a personal best time, as did Paige Walter. I think we have a really strong top 4 runners with Kelsey Roquet. I hope as the season progresses we will be able to gain some strength in the 5 to 7 spots. We have the talent on the team, we just need to work a little harder to bring it out. This girls team potentially can be really good. The JV girls had some good performances as well. In comparison to the last meet, they all ran much better and looked much stronger today. Foreign exchange student Alina Nettesheim led the way running a time of 19:35. Alina has been showing steady improvement every day and I was glad to see her run so well. Kayley Keller and Amanda Stefanik were close behind running 20:00 and 20:02 respectively. I think between Natalie, Gabi, Alina, Kayley and Amanda we have the strong runners we need to add depth to our team. Angela Hyland (21:13), Kenzie Gunter (22:27) and Lauren Gorski (23:07) completed the Indians team. As a team, the Indians finished in 7th place in the 15 team field with 214 points.
The middle school teams also saw their first action of the season. The girls placed 3 in the top 10 led by Sienna DeJong in 2nd place with a time of 7:41 for the 1.25 mile course. Melissa Moorman was 7th in 7:58 and Bailey Blythe was 10th in 8:12. We have some good young talent at the middle school and they did a great job tonight. It was the first meet for most of them and I thought they handled it like veterans. The boys placed 2 in the top 10 led by Brady DeJong in 6th place with a time of 7:46 and Colten Berg in 10th with a time of 8:06. I thought those two ran well and along with the rest of the boys had a good experience for their first meet. Like the girls, I expect to see continued improvement as we run more meets. We’ll run a tougher course at our home invitational next week.
