BURLINGTON — Marmaton Valley High’s Chance Stevenson led area runners in the 2012 cross country season opener at Burlington for Marmaton Valley, Yates Center and Crest teams.
Stevenson earned the seventh-place medal in the varsity boys’ 5K race in 19 minutes, 47 seconds. Yates Center High’s Ceaton Cooper took the 17th-place medal in 21:16.
Marcus Miller of Marmaton Valley was 24th in 22:01 and Yates Center’s Sam Aguirre was 34th in 22:08.
Crest High’s Dal Lacey finished 40th in 24:01 followed by Michael Armstrong in 48th at 25:18. David Womelsdorf placed 51st in 25:50 and Kaden Strickler took 58th in 31:22.
In the girls’ varsity 4K, Marmaton Valley’s Ashtynn Louk placed 22nd in 20:49. Crest’s Brooke Gray-LaCross was 39th in a personal best 22:59 and Madison Kellar was 49th in 29:49.
Yates Center went 1-2-3 in the junior varsity boys’ two-mile race. Brett Holloway won the race in 11:32 just nipping teammate Drake Busteed, 11:33. Tyler Keenan was third in 11:42.
The next two places went to Marmaton Valley runners. Michael Swift was fourth in 11:49 and Garrett Booth placed fifth in 12:04.
Yates Center’s Hayden Splechter took the 10th-place medal in 12:45. Dustin Dyer was 28th in 15:21.
Marmaton Valley’s Marc Waggoner was 22nd and Jake Wise was 32nd in the junior varsity race. No times were available because of a timer problem.
Emily Baker posted a winning time of 13:03 to give Yates Center a sweep of junior varsity races. Sabrinia Areil was third in the girls’ race at 14:10.
“Only Sam and Ceaton had any cross country experience coming into the season so they ran in the varsity race,” said Kevin Barnes, Yates Center coach. “I could not have asked for the first-time runners to do much better than they did.”
In the middle school mile race, Crest’s Nate Berry was eighth in 8:35 and Marmaton Valley’s Josh Wise took ninth in 9:19.
