By John Rittenhouse
The Hills-Beaver Creek-Ellsworth-Edgerton boys' cross country team turned in a strong performance at a meet in Iowa Monday.
Competing in the West Lyon Invitational, staged at Meadow Acres Country Club near Larchwood, the Patriot boys placed second in a 12-team field with 62 points.
Okoboji won the team event with 47 points, but Patriot coach Tom Goehle was satisfied with placing second.
"There is some good competition at this meet," he said. "Some of these schools have outstanding cross country traditions. When you can say that you placed second as a team at this meet, you know that you ran well."
Tyler Bush and Zach Hadler led the Patriots to victory by placing first and third with respective 17:39 and 18:01 times.
Greg Van Batavia (17th in 19:08), Todd Alberty (20th in 19:18) and Kale Wiertzema (21st in 19:24) contributed to H-BC-E-EÕs second-place performance.
"Collectively, I think this was as good as our varsity boys have run this year," Goehle added.
Mya Mann and Erika Fransen ran solid junior varsity races for the Patriot girls by finishing second and eighth with times of 17:01 and 17:25. Rayne Sandoval placed 13th in 18:07.
Derek Haak led H-BC-E-E in the boysÕ junior varsity race by finishing ninth in 20:36.
John Sandbulte (15th in 21:50), Devin DeBoer (20th in 22:51), Michael Bos (26th in 23:13), Jared Drenth (27th in 23:23) and Justin Hinks (51st in 30:09) also ran in the junior varsity event.
H-BC-E-E will compete at a meet in Princeton Saturday.