By John Rittenhouse
Complete boys' varsity and junior varsity teams representing the Hills-Beaver Creek-Ellsworth cross country program held their own during the West Lyon Invitational staged near Larchwood, Iowa, Monday.
Mixing it up in 12-team fields, the H-BC-E varsity boys placed fourth and the junior varsity squad finished third at what was a competitive meet.
The boys' varsity squad scored 105 points, finishing behind Hull Western Christian (56), Lennox (76) and Okoboji (84) in the standings.
H-BC-E's junior varsity boys tallied 87 points, placing third behind HWC (34) and George-Little Rock-Central Lyon (71).
Brad Haak set the stage for H-BC-E's strong finish at the varsity level by placing third in 16:47.
Tyler Bush (15th in 17:35), Nathan Fick (26th in 18:34), Matt Buck (28th in 18:40) and Lee Jackson (33rd in 18:49) made contributions to the team effort.
Greg Van Batavia placed 44th in 20:10 without influencing the scoring.
Kale Wiertzema led the junior varsity boys by finishing fifth in 18:40.
Nathan Mahone (13th in 19:35), Lee Walraven (16th in 19:45), Devin DeBoer (20th in 20:06) and Derek Haak (33rd in 20:55) padded the team tally.
John Sandbulte and Paul Jess placed 38th and 39th with respective 21:40 and 21:50 times without influencing the scoring.
The Patriots were unable to field a complete girls' junior varsity team, but Cassi Tilstra and Brittney Rozeboom did make in impact in that race.
Tilstra won the run with a time of 13:32. Rozeboom was second in 14:20.
Patriots Stacy Bush and Becky Broesder placed 13th and 20th with respective 15:24 and 16:05 times.
According to Patriot coach Tom Goehle, good running weather led to outstanding performances by all of his athletes.
"Our kids had a really good showing down there," he said. "Straight across the board, all the kids improved their times from one year ago at the same meet."
The Patriots will run at the Worthington Turkey Trot Saturday.