CROSS COUNTRY

The Forester cross country program took a partial squad to Taylor’s Bullock Invitational Friday afternoon where the men claimed seventh and the women finished eleventh.

Competing without their top five in both races, the Foresters who laced up garnered plenty of compliments from Coach Johnson. “Overall, our conference is one of the best, if not the best, in the nation so for our kids to go out there and compete so well against the other teams in our league, I am proud of this group.

“Both teams ran solid races on a difficult course. We ran conservatively early on and then worked our way up throughout the field as we got into the hills. Our kids did a great job picking off runners.”

In the men’s 8K, Gibson Reece made his college debut to lead the Foresters with a 23rd place finish in 26:33.1. Austin Liepe crossed the line next for HU in 27:03.1 good for the 34th spot. Drake Kropf turned in a 27:18.6 to land at 41st.

Josiah Sovine had a breakout race to establish a new PR of 28:11.9 for 61st place. Kody Ahrens’ 63rd place finish in 28:14.7 rounded out Huntington’s scoring.

Other runners for the Foresters included Justin Ayres (75th, 29:36.4), Justin Edwards (79th, 30:16.4) and Logan Busz (124th, 30:32.9).

On the women’s side, Shaylynn Reyes topped Huntington by clocking in at 19:54.9 for 34th out of 135 runners. Isabel Hunter came in next for the Foresters in 20:13.3 for 41st place. Ireland Dodson ran a 20:22.4 to slip in at 44th. HU’s final two scorers included Megan Miller (61st, 21:17.9) and Erin Manchess (67th, 21:36.6).

Emma St. Peters ran one spot back in 21:47.5, a new PR, for 68th place. Other HU runners included Lauren Marsh (70th, 21:53.3) and Lauren Craig (105th, 23:11.2).

The Foresters have a two-week break before hosting their own invitational on October 2.