Last week, the Ellsworth Junior-Senior High School cross country runners competed at the Southeast of Saline meet.

“The course was a little different this year, thanks to the construction on and around the football stadium,” head coach Eric Coonrod said.“While this seems to normally be the kids’ least favorite meet of the year, this year they liked the course a lot better. It was a faster course too, thanks to the new path, a few of the tight turns and steep hills were eliminated.

Coonrod said the runners ran very well, and as a result Ellsworth was able to bring home a lot of hardware and hit some milestones, with the seventh graders running their first two mile race, and Noah and Logan Erichsen running in the 17s and Joni Schroeder running a sub-21:00 race.

He said the boys team ended up losing the tiebreaker for third and placed in fourth place behind highly ranked teams from both 1A and 3A.

Classifications came out last week also, and Ellsworth will be 2A again this year.

“We’ll find out this week where we go for Regionals and who we’ll be running against,” Coonrod said.“This week, we’ll be running at Camp WaJaTo in Lyons, which has been a fast course in the past, so I’m looking forward to seeing our times on this one too. Next week, we’ll be running the hills of Ellsworth at our home meet on Tuesday.”

Girls Varsity (44 runners total)

Joni Schroeder 20:45, 6th, medaled, (PR). Brenna Pruitt 24:04, 26th. Kirsten Meier 24:55, 28th.

Girls JV (18 runners total)

Cassie Duncan 28:34, 15th, (PR)

Boys Varsity (83 runners total)

Noah Erichsen 17:38, 16th, medaled (PR). Logan Erichsen 17:58, 19th, medaled (PR). Hayden Rogers 18:03, 22nd, medaled (PR). Braden Schulte 18:19, 28th (PR). Byron Johnson 18:42, 35th (PR). Cade Gwinner 19:41, 48th (PR). Jonathan Spachek 19:54, 50th (PR).

Boys JV (57 runners total)

Travis Bentley 19:40, 12th (PR). Jaxson Stefek 21:47, 27th (PR). Grady Mueller 23:13, 40th.

Junior High 8th Grade Boys (54 runners total)

Kason LaMont 19:51, 53rd (PR).

7th Grade Girls (33 runners total)

Madison Newell 16:24, 13th, medaled (PR).

7th Grade Boys (68 runners total)

Billy Duncan 19:46, 55th (PR). Isaac Womelsdorf 20:01, 59th (PR). Aidan Johnson 20:41, 61st (PR).