HCHS girls place third in loaded Atlantic Invite field
ATLANTIC (Oct. 4) -- The Harlan Community girls’ streak of six straight cross country team titles came to an end on Thursday afternoon as part of a deep and talent-rich field at the Atlantic Invite.
The meet was held on the Atlantic High School campus and saw 667 total runners compete at the varsity and junior varsity levels.
The girls’ varsity race was especially stacked with four state-ranked teams from Class 3A finishing within 10 points of each other. Sioux City Bishop Heelan, ranked the lowest of the four at 14th by the Iowa Association of Track Coaches, won the meet by a single point over No. 5 Glenwood, 87-88, followed by No. 2 HCHS in third (92) and No. 6 Dallas Center-Grimes (97). Atlantic, which is ranked seventh in 3A, placed fifth with a 131.
The Cyclones girls had won six consecutive team titles since placing second to Glenwood in the 2018 season opener (at Glenwood). Senior Greichaly Kaster paced the team Thursday by finishing 11th out of 148 runners with a time of 19:52. Freshman Kaia Bieker came in less than three seconds behind Kaster in 13th while Raegen Wicks (21st), Lucy Borkowski (22nd) and Abby Alberti (25th) also placed in the top 25.
“The girls’ varsity race was an incredible who’s who of western Iowa,” stated HCHS coach Doug Renkly. “We knew going in that getting into the top 10 places in this meet was going to be very difficult. We were excited to see five ranked teams show up at the starting line. This was like a mini-state meet.”
While there were 19 full-squad girls teams on hand (plus partials), the boys half of the meet featured 22 teams and a clear-cut winner in fifth-ranked (3A) DC-G. Led by three runners in the top 10, the Mustangs posted a 70 to easily outscore second-place Council Bluffs Thomas Jefferson (131) and Lewis Central (139).
HCHS finished 11th with a 299, led by sophomore Trey Gross in ninth place out of 161 individuals (17:13). The Cyclones’ next five runners all finished within 36 seconds of each other: Isaac Jones 61st, Brennon Munch 62nd, Dalton Gross 87th, Mitchell Rueschenberg 91st and Wyatt Obrecht 96th.