The Hill City Cross Country team, first and foremost,
extends our sympathy along with our thoughts and prayers to the Ginsbach family. We
will dearly miss our coach, teacher, mentor and friend.
In running action, the Rangers were all over South Dakota
this week. On Thursday, the Running Rangers traveled to Belle
Fourche. The middle school runners were the first to take to the
course. In the girl’s middle school race, Jennifer Qualm and Michal Weiderhold ran exceptionally well in their first
race ever, crossing the line in 11th and 21st, respectively. In
the middle school boy’s race, Jared Weitzel, new to Hill
City this school year, was the first Ranger runner to finish, running
for 25th place. Brandon King was 51st, Randy Wills crossed
in 63rd and Justin Lewis was 71st in the very large middle school division.
In the JV boy’s race, Tayden Welsch did
very well in his first race ever, finishing in 23rd out of 40 runners. Tyler Triplett ran the opening race of his
careers, finishing 27th in the same race.
The boy’s Varsity races included newcomer
Franky Torres and Jesus Meza. Torres ran 20:55 to finish 29th. Meza improved and ran for 31st place.
Cassidy Hart continued to improve and had another
great meet. Cassidy finished in the medals for the first time in a Varsity race,
crossing the line in 13th place which charted her as the 5th Class A girl to finish. Jill McNulty also ran in the varsity race, but had problems on the last lap and was not able to finish.
The Ranger boy’s varsity team traveled to
Sioux Falls for the Augustana Meet of Champions Saturday. The elite meet featured the top AA and A schools from South Dakota
as well as teams from Minnesota and North Dakota. The course was the most challenging course the Rangers have competed on this year
and to make things more exciting, the course was a mud-fest, due to the rain the previous night and throughout the morning.
In the JV race featured many Class A schools and
boasted 135 runners! Kyle Alexander, Thomas Nimick and Forrest King each ran, by far, their best races of the season. Alexander, who finished in 48th place, ran with in the Top 20 for a good
portion of the race. Nimick ran the best race of his career, passing groups
of runners each mile, to finish in 68th place. King was 102nd
and ran a much smarter race than at the previous meets. Andy Coy, the Varsity
Runner-Up, ran a phenomenal race in the Varsity division, running neck and neck with the best AA runner in the state, Josh
Heitkamp of Sioux Falls Washington. Heitkamp ended up pulling away during the final 400 meters and finished eight seconds
in front of Coy, who was ten seconds up on third place. I was proud of the effort
and determination of these guys displayed on such a difficult day.
The Rangers will continue this week with a large
block of training and a race in Custer on Thursday beginning at 2:00.
