Heading into a tough stretch

Seven runners ran personal bests during Hartley-Melvin-Sanborn's home cross country meet on Sept. 23 at Sanborn Golf and Country Club.

Hawk coach Naet Hoaglund was pleased with the performances throughout the program, and that they occurred with the support of students and community members

"It was an awesome opportunity to compete at our home meet," he said. "These kids work hard and compete hard, so to have the opportunity to display that hard work in front of friends and classmates was fun to see."

The Hawk boys finished third in the team standings. Sioux Central won the title with 29 points, Alta-Aurelia was runner-up with 74 and H-M-S edged MMCRU (91-93).

Results for H-M-S were: Aiden Bush, ninth, 19:30; Damian Dodge, 15th, 19:46; Blaine Finster, 20th, 20:57; Ryan Grotluschen, 21st, 21:01; James Carlin, 26th, 21:25; Simone Dellavedova, 33rd, 22:03; and Carter Dolphin, 38th, 23:12.

"I thought Damian looked the best he's looked all year. He ran with confidence and looked really strong throughout his race," Hoaglund said. "Blaine had a really good run and looked strong throughout his race. I was really proud of Simone. He ran a personal best and his confidence continues to grow."

Other team scores were George-Little Rock/Central Lyon 115 points, Hinton 143 and Trinity Christian 162.

Girls' varsity runners were Kamryn Ebel, 16th (24:17) and Gracie Knobloch, 30th (29:38).

Sioux Central and Alta-Aurelia finished in a tie with 36 points, GLR/CL scored 65, Hinton scored 95 and MMCRU scored 134.

Two JV runners recorded season-best times. Brooklyn Erickson placed third in the girls' race (28:04) and Moises Gonzalez was 18th for the boys (27:29). Karter Zimmer placed 12th in the boys' JV (24:14).

"Overall, I'm proud of these kids and how they work and how they keep striving to improve," Hoaglund said. "We hit a tough stretch in the schedule here with a couple of meets per week so we'll have to be mentally tough in our approach to those meets and find areas of growth in some sort of fashion."

• Compete at Sioux Center

The Hawks ran against athletes from several quality cross country programs during the Sioux Center Invitational. The meet was held Sept. 26 at the Dordt University course.

H-M-S finished 15th in the boys' standings, scoring 428 points. Individual results were: Bush, 66th, 19:22; Dodge, 85th, 20:19; Carlin, 91st, 20:38; Finster, 95th, 21:13; Dellavedova, 103rd, 22:12; and Dolphin, 112th, 23:36.

"We were down a few runners on the boys' side so our team score probably wasn't where we wanted it to be, but we have a lot of positives to take away," Hoaglund noted.

The Top 3 boys' teams were Sioux City North 57, Okoboji 103 and Spirit Lake 109.

Ebel ran a personal-best time of 24:10 to place 63rd in the girls' varsity race.

"Each meet out has been an improvement over the previous race, so that says a lot about her willingness to compete and desire to improve," Hoaglund said.

Knobloch placed 92nd, running a time of 29:58.

Zimmer placed 102nd in the boys' JV field (24:52) and Gonzalez was 122nd (28:45).

H-M-S will compete in a meet hosted by South O'Brien, on Oct. 3 at Paullina.