Hills-Beaver Creek-Ellsworth-Edgerton's Erica Fransen (middle) and Mya Mann (right) placed 20th and 26th respectively during the varsity race at the Cardinal Autumn Invitational in Adrian Thursday.
By John Rittenhouse
The Hills-Beaver Creek-Ellsworth-Edgerton cross country runners honed their skills for some important upcoming meets at the Adrian Invitational Tuesday.
With the Red Rock Conference meet set for Tuesday in Slayton, and the Section 3A meet coming up Oct. 24, H-BC-E-E approached the meet in Adrian with modest goals.
Instead of trying to win team titles, Patriot coach Tom Goehle simply wanted his runners to get in a good workout.
"This was a good tune-up meet for us. We were trying some different things, and running some of our kids in different races. I looked at it like we were trying to mend a few fences while getting ready for the conference and section meets," he said.
With that in mind, H-BC-E-E didn't enter girls in the varsity race in Adrian.
The Patriots also fielded an incomplete boys' varsity team, but Tyler Bush and Zach Hadler did make strong appearances by placing first and seventh with respective 17:04 and 17:34 times.
Todd Alberty also ran in the varsity race, finishing 20th in 18:36.
H-BC-E-E did run a complete boys' junior varsity team, and the Patriots placed second (30-31) to Sioux Falls Washington in final standings.
Kale Wiertzema (first in 14:28), Greg Van Batavia (third in 14:43), Lee Jackson (fifth in 15:06), Derek Haak (ninth in 15:21), Devin DeBoer (20th in 16:13), Kerry Fink (24th in 16:24), Michael Bos (34th in 16:59), John Sandbulte (36th in 17:11) and Justin Hinks (50th in 21:34) competed in the junior varsity run for the Patriots.
Erika Fransen and Mya Mann finished fifth and seventh with times of 18:02 and 18:29 in the girls' junior varsity race.
Cody Rozeboom, Adam Finke and Grant Hoogendoorn placed third, fifth and 14th with respective 6:16, 6:20 and 6:32 times in the boysÕ junior high race.
Rayne Sandoval finished 31st in 7:10 in the girls' junior high run.