The Iola Middle School cross country team competed at Eureka and while they were a little short-handed recording just one team score amongst the four races, they still had several individual standouts.
The seventh grade boys were the only Ponies to have enough runners to record a team score and they made the most of it, finishing second with 47 points behind Burlington who had 34.
Kaster Trabuc led for Iola with a third-place finish after finishing with a time of 13:30. Trabuc was at fifth at the mile mark but was able to move his way up two places near the end of the race.
In addition to Trabuc, Brock Sander (15:19) finished 16th, Luke Wicoff (16:15) finished 21st, Payton Houk (16:21) finished 22nd and Jesse Taylor (17:33) finished 31st.
Jayden Kaufman finished 15th as the lone seventh grade girl with a time of 17:34.
On the eighth grade side, the boys had just two runners but both finished in the top 15. Drake Delatorre finished fifth with a time of 13:27 and Colin Long (14:39) finished 13th.
“Drake took off with the leaders and settled into fifth place well before the mile mark and kept his spot for the last of the race,” head coach Marv Smith said. “Colin had his best race of the season, yet barely finished out of the medals. He was satisfied with his time and effort.”
The Pony 8th grade girls brought enough runners to register a team score but had one fall ill just before the race, leaving them one short.
Ursula Billings (15:03) and Natalie Fees (15:58) both excelled and medaled sixth and 10th respectively.
“The first two girls in this race were outstanding and had a blistering pace,” Smith said. “I think that Ursula and Natalie suffered near the end of the race because of that first mile.”
Emily Long finished 13th with a time of 17:04 and Joria Murcko finished 21st with a time of 18:49.
The high school will run in its final regular season race today at Independence before joining with the middle school to run in the Pioneer League meet at Burlington a week from Thursday.
