JEFFERSON — Spring Lake State Park served as the site for Thursday’s Greene County Invitational, with the Perry cross country teams one of many running at the event.
Nevada won the Class AA boys meet with 43 points, with Kuemper Catholic second at 81 and Algona third at 83 while Perry was seventh of nine teams with 178 points.
The Class AA girls title went to Denison-Schleswig’s impressive score of 24, with Creston (61) and Winterset (66) following. Perry was ninth with 261 points.
Zachary Thompson’s 18 minute, 49 second clocking was the fastest for the Perry boys varsity and was 20th overall. Eli Noble was 25th in 19:33, with Mario Cruz (43rd, 20:13), Eduardo Sanchez (44th, 20:13) and Zach Stewart (46th, 20:18) also scoring for the Bluejays. Aaron Lockwood (53rd, 20:54) and Ben Stika (57th, 21:47) completed the varsity seven.
“Zachary has been running really hard, taking the lead spot both practice and at meets,” Bluejay head coach Jeff Fox said. “He has really risen to the challenge his senior year and is determined to be our leader.”
Fox said Cruz “has been running very well this year” but that he “had kind of always expected that” and was “happy to see it happening.”
The coach also noted the efforts of Sanchez.
“Eduardo has stepped it up quite a bit since track season,” Fox said. “He has steadily improved, and I don’t think he is done yet.”
Hayden McFarland (21:48), Gabe Ridnour (22:44), Beau Nelson (23:01), Jacob Prombo (23:29), Miguel Gonzalez (24:57), Chase Archer and Collin Malmberg (both 25:41) were the second set of seven to finish for Perry.
Hannah Peterson (25:14), Cris Gomez (27:05) and Julissa Calderon (27:35) placed 45-51-53, respectively, to pace the Jayette varsity. Angela Hernandez (55th, 27:48) and Sophie Prombo (57th, 28:44) also scored, with Jaky Castaneda (61st, 29:27) and Darian McCord (62nd, 29:51) providing varsity finishes as well.
Kat Munoz (29:58), Jocelyn Fuentes (31:09), Alondra Avila (35:08), Taylor Eppert (35:10) and Maria Izquierdo (37:13) were also in action for the Perry girls.
Tanner Burgin (15:13), Gannon Meis (15:28), Cole Nelson (16:34) and Christian Garrido (19:59) ran the two-mile junior high boys race for Perry. No report has been received on a junior high girls race.
Perry will race Monday at Ballard and then take a small hiatus as they will then be off until a Sept. 19 date at Newton.
