Wildcats Do Well At Ridgway Cross Country Invitational; Varsity Boys Finish Second Varsity Girls Take Fourth

Photo courtesy of Diane Lutz – Wildcats with their Top Finisher Red T-Shirt Awards (L-R) Eliza Datko, Drake Edmonds, Adisen Jackson, Logan Powell and Hannah Love. Missing from photo: Jackson Baker.

The Central Clarion Wildcats Cross Country Teams had a very good showing at the Ridgway Invitational on Saturday, October 5th.

Coach Nicole Oakes shared this summary of her teams’ performances:

We had the nicest weather and driest course I can remember seeing at Ridgway. 

Varsity girls started us off, with 108 competitors in the first race of the day we were pleased to have Eliza Datko (20:42.10) medaling in 7th place and Adisen Jackson (21:09.30) medaling in 11th. Also finishing in the top 20, Reise Jackson (21:40.90) finished 19th. With only 5 of our 7 girls racing today, we were pleased with an overall 4th place finish as a team out of 13 teams. This meet is always a preliminary predictor of how we may finish in a few weeks for districts, the girls saw Brockway and Cranberry finishing in front of us, both teams we will see again this coming Wednesday. For district 9 A, the top two teams will advance to the state meet which is really where our focus is right now at this winding down part of the season, we are hopeful and determined, but truly anything can happen and all of the other teams are thinking the same thing. 

During the Varsity boys race, we saw a big switch around in our top 5 finishing places, however despite this, the team finished second out of sixteen teams, coming up short only to Brookville’s powerhouse boys team, which have now moved out of our single A division for the district meet. The first loop around the Ridgway course, our pack of boys looked really intimidating holding four of the top 10 spots, but they really went out a little too fast, so pacing is going to be a practice focus the next couple of weeks. Drake Edmonds (17:22.90) medaled finishing 6th out of 134 runners and then Logan Powell (17:32.90) finished 12th to also bring home a medal. Jonas Wilshire (16:46.60) and Hayden Weber (18:04.80) also both finished in the top 20 with 16th and 19th place finishes. Truly, I think that says a lot, four runners in the top twenty… our boys really have goals and they want a team trip to state for the inaugural season of the wildcats. 

In the Junior High girls race, we only had four girls competing today. Hannah Love (11:21.40) finished 5th out of 87 runners. She has really had a phenomenal season, and we are really hoping she stays with us and carries on this season’s success next year joining our Varsity squad. In the Clarion United Way race last weekend, Hannah finished 2nd overall after teammate Eliza that took first. During practices, we have moved Hannah to training with the varsity team. Week after week Hannah keeps coming out and improving and pulling great times. Bryn Anderson (12:01.30) finished 13th.  From race to race, Bryn and Hannah seem to tag team who is going to be our number one, both are exceptional young runners. Brylie Glenn (11:26.80) finished 21st today, the last two weeks she has sort of come out of nowhere and decided she was going to be a runner, I guess she is doing exactly what we hope and starting to peak at the right time. I am anxious to see how her last two races of the season go. 

For our Junior High boys we have a similar situation to the girls team, with Jackson Baker (10:07.30) and Griffin Edmonds (10:18.70) switching back and forth taking our number one spot. Those boys constantly are pushing each other in friendly competition, helping them both continue to improve. Today Jackson took the win out of our Wildcat runners finishing 8th out of 92 runners, Griff was not far behind, finishing 12th.

(Good Meet, Wildcats!!!! Thanks to Coach Oakes for this summary and to Diane Lutz for her photos!!)