This past Thursday, the Ellsworth Junior-Senior High School Cross Country Team traveled to the Downs Golf Course to compete in the Lakeside Invitational Meet.

“This is a fairly large meet with over 20 schools competing,” said head coach Eric Coonrod. “For us, this is also a meet where we get to see some competition that we don’t always get to see.”

In the Lakeside Invitational, there were 25 varsity and 15 JV medals awarded. This meet also doubles as the NCAA league meet, as all of the league schools were in attendance.

“Once results are done, runners from the league schools were filtered out and scored against each other for league placings,” Coonrod said.

To be recognized as allleague, individuals must finish in the top 10 in league standings. Ellsworth had three runners who won all-league honors: Noah Erichsen in eighth; Joni Schroeder in ninth; and Hayden Rogers in 10th.

“Overall, the boy’s team finished second in league standings behind Southeast of Saline, a team likely to contend for a state title in a couple weeks,” Coonrod said.

In overall Lakeside invitational scoring, the boys finished third behind Southeast and Norton.

“The last time Ellsworth High School had a boy’s team finish in second or better in league standings and third or better in overall scoring was when the 2008 boys team placed second in league and third overall,” he said.

The girls team placed fourth in league and seventh overall — a solid day for the girls as well against very tough competition.

Coonrod said that seventh overall matched their placing last year, and their fourth place in league was one place better than 2018.

The girls and boys now look to the Regional meet Saturday, Oct. 26, at Hutchinson, hosted by Buhler High School, to compete for a chance to go to the state meet.

The top 10 individuals and the top three teams will go on to compete at the 2A state meet Nov. 2 in Wamego.

“There will be a lot of competition at the regional, and some of the schools in attendance we have competed against, and some of them we haven’t,” Coonrod said. “We’ll have to go into the meet very focused on the job at hand, to deal with the unknowns that always seem to pop up.”

Results from Lakeside are below, with NCAA League finish in parentheses:

Varsity Boys (90 runners overall, 40 runners in league)

• Noah Erichsen, 18:42, 14th, medaled (Eighth NCAAmedaled), this was his second all-league medal.

• Hayden Rogers, 18:52, 16th, medaled (10th NCAAmedaled), this was his third allleague medal in his final time on this course.

• Logan Erichsen, 19:17, 24th, medaled (16th NCAA).

• Braden Schulte, 19:24, 26th (17th NCAA).

• Byron Johnson, 19:56, 37th (20th NCAA).

• Cade Gwinner, 20:26, 48th (23rd NCAA).

• Jonathan Spachek, 20:30, 50th (24th NCAA).

Varsity Girls (75 runners overall, 32 runners in league)

• Joni Schroeder, 23:10, 21st, medaled (9th NCAA-medaled) this was her second all-league medal.

• Brenna Pruitt, 24:09, 31st (14th NCAA).

• Olivia Neuman, 25:37, 50th (22nd NCAA).

• Kirsten Meier, 26:37, 56th (25th NCAA).

• Cassie Duncan, 32:11, 70th (31st NCAA).

JV Boys (53 runners overall, no league scoring)

• Travis Bentley, 20:52, 7th, medaled.

• Grady Mueller, 22:05, 17th.

• Jaxson Stefek, 22:40, 24th.