By John Rittenhouse
The Hills-Beaver Creek-Ellsworth cross country runners battled the competition and the weather conditions at the Pipestone-Jasper Invitational in Pipestone Monday.
Mixing it up with some strong teams on a hot day for early October made it a challenging day for the Patriots.
The H-BC-E athletes met the challenge in a positive way, according to Patriot coach Tom Goehle.
"It was a lot warmer day than what we've been seeing lately, and some of our kids found it hard to adjust to it. They were a little tired because we've been having some hard practices, but we ran pretty well for being tired," he said.
The Patriots fielded a complete boys' varsity team that scored 46 points to place second behind Worthington, which tallied 27 counters. Luverne was third with 102 points.
Brad HaakÕs impressive senior season continued as he won the varsity race with a time of 17:34.
Tyler Bush (sixth in 18:32), Nathan Fick (10th in 18:46), Kale Wiertzema (14th in 19:21) and Lee Walraven (15th in 19:34) completed H-BC-E's varsity effort.
The Patriot boys' junior varsity placed second behind Brandon Valley (S.D.) with a total of 67 points.
Greg Van Batavia paced the Patriots by finishing fourth in 15:13.
Lee Jackson (ninth in 16:57), Derek Haak (15th in 17:18), Paul Jess (18th in 18:17) and Jared Drenth (21st in 18:58) padded the boys' junior varsity team tally.
Goehle was unsure what place the H-BC-E girls' junior varsity team finished in.
Cassi Tilstra and Brittney Rozeboom ran strong races by finishing third and seventh with respective 17:34 and 19:00 times.
Stacy Bush (13th in 20:25), Amanda Tilstra (16th in 20:30) and Becky Broesder (18th in 20:47) also ran in the junior varsity race for the Patriot girls.
The boys' junior high squad placed second behind Brandon Valley with 50 points.
Devin DeBoer, Kerry Fink and John Sandbulte placed sixth in 6:14, eighth in 6:19 and ninth in 6:24 to led the Patriots.
Adam Finke and Grant Hoogendoorn capped the team effort by finishing 11th and 16th with respective 6:33 and 6:52 times.
Justin Hinks didn't contribute to the tally after placing 19th in 8:24.
The Patriot runners will compete at the Rock County Invitational and Adrian Invitational today and Tuesday. Both meets will be staged at the Adrian Country Club.