Cross Country:  Girls and Boys Place 2nd at Twin Cities Meet

Tuesday afternoon at Hoover Park in Sterling was a beautiful setting for the Twin City Cross Country Meet hosted by Sterling High School.  Joining the Warriors in this annual event were Newman High School and Rock Falls High School.

Individual awards go to the first place overall female and male athlete in the varsity races and frosh-soph races.

Sterling athletes won the varsity first place medals in clearly convincing races.  On the girls side, Mercedes Sanchez, a freshman, won the race in 19:54.  The boy to win the top title was Dylan Harkness, a senior, in 16:18. The next runner was 37 seconds behind him.

The fresh/soph winners were Drew Rosengren (18:55), a freshman from Newman, and Emma Miller, a freshman from Rock Falls (23:46).

The girls race came off with little suspense and few surprises as the Sterling team ran to a score of 41 points, Rock Falls girls 20 points and Newman did not field a complete team. Sterling scored places 1 (Sanchez), 8 (Emily Crossley), 9 (Mary Franque), 11 (Alayna Wolfe) and 12 (Yessenia Cano). Other Sterling runners were Shawna Anderson (Sr), Sarah Gunderson (So), Paola Castro (Jr), Charisma Martinez (Sr).

The boys race was a bit more exciting and suspense filled. The individual winner was Dylan Harkness (Sr/SHS), followed by a freshman from Newman, Bryson Reyes (16:55) and then a Rock Falls athlete, Brandt Cole (16.58). The 4th runner was Josh Landis (Sr) (17:26) from SHS and then a Newman athlete Micah Trancoso.

In the end, just two points separated all three teams.  Any of the top 15 runners in this meet could have altered the score by one and changed the outcome of Newman 41 (3rd place), Sterling 40 (2nd place) and  Rock Falls 39 (1st Place).

SHS Coach Nancy Gehrke: “The SHS race of the day goes to Dylan Harkness as he took the lead and never looked back as the lead grew till the end.  The other notable race was by Isaac Anderson, a freshman, who has never run a 3 mile race before. He is best known for his wrestling abilities and award collection there.  Tonight he ran a 17:45 placing, 3rd the team. Congratulations to both of these athletes. Also congratulations to freshman (the runners in 5th and 7th place for the varsity race) Ethan Rocha and Zach Alston.  The 6th place runner, Keaton Dir, is better known for his swimming, however, decided to lace up his shoes for the fall and has shown he has a lot of potential on the cross country courses too.  This young squad showed some real potential in the meet.”

Next Up:  Sterling competes at the Geneseo Invitational Saturday (9/17) with action getting underway at 9:00 a.m.