LCHS Cross Country competes at Olympia

[October 06, 2020] 

The Railers Boys and Girls Cross Country Teams faced some amazing competition on Saturday at Olympia High School in Stanford as teams from Olympia, Monticello, Tolono Unity, IVC, Bloomington Central Catholic, Prairie Central and Lincoln all made up the seven-team field. There were lots of talented runners from across Central Illinois in these meets, which were won by the Monticello Girls and the Olympia Boys Teams.

The girls' races kicked off morning competition at 10 a.m. "It was a chilly and rainy morning, but the rain stayed away when it was time to start the races," said Lincoln Cross Country Coach Andrew Hite.

Hite explained how the races worked on Saturday. "The races were broken into parts," said Hite. "Each team's top five would start, then when they were finished, the 6-10 (place) runners on each team would start. There was an open race after that for any other runners outside of each team's top 10. Due to injury, we only had five girls run, but we still had enough runners to get points for fifth place out of six teams. Monticello's Mabry Bruhn ran an impressive 17:17 to finish first, while Becca Heitzig, Lincoln's top runner, finished sixth with a time of 18:50."

The top boys ran following the girls' races. "The boys fared a little better, having four in the top 20 and coming in fourth place out of seven teams," said Hite.

"Olympia's Charlie Kistner finished with a time of 14:57, which is the best time we have seen at any of the meets in which we participated this year. (Lincoln's) Brenden Heitzig finished in fifth place with a time of 16:16."

At noon the remaining field of boys' and girls' runners competed.

Olympia's Charlie Kistner finished with a time of 14:57

"The course was fairly flat and there was very little wind slowing down the runners," said Hite. "Ten of the Railers scored their best times of the season, including Brenden Heitzig, Drake Rutledge, Ethan Bivin, Ben Crombie, Louis Dalpoas, Carson Franz, Aidan and Dylan Gowin, Hattie Mourning, and Abby Stiefvater."

Hite concluded, "They keep getting better. We faced some great competition today, so it helps us know where we stand. We have three meets left before Regionals, including the Apollo Conference meet on October 13 in Charleston. I look forward to seeing what we can do there."

The Railers next meet is Tuesday (today) at Jacksonville.

Olympia Meet complete results:

Girls results can be found here.
Boys results can be found here.

[Teena Lowery]