Alliance and Hemingford traveled to Scottsbluff on August 25, where the high school and middle school competed in the first cross country meet of the season.
Bulldog Benjamin Cassatt-Reina performed extremely well, earning himself a third place medal with a time of 19:01.67, only losing by seconds to James Adams from Scottsbluff for second place who had a time of 18:58.97.
“I felt like I performed pretty good especially with the weather conditions. With it being hot, because with me I run faster when it is cold, but since it was warm I did alright. Since it was the first race I felt like I did an excellent job. I placed third and the kid in front of me had just a little bit more in the tank though but I know what I need to do for our next race and I’m going to train as hard as I can to prepare for it,” said Cassatt-Reina.
The other performer for Alliance was Mario Rodriguez who placed 21st with a time of 20:27.32. Rodriguez said he felt unprepared for weeks and finally felt prepared going into the meet.
“I felt good. I felt like I was finally ready after weeks of not feeling prepared whatsoever,” said Rodriguez.
Alliance had accumulated a team score of 81 giving them a fourth place finish out of eight other teams finishing just behind Chadron for the top three spot. Chadron had a team score of 62. Alliance Head Coach Kelly Erickson and Assistant Coach Nick Kizzire have challenges for the team with only three returning runners and a young team, nonetheless they were still proud and had a good kick off to the season performing very well.
“We only had three returning high school runners this year. Mario, Ben and Christian Soriano a senior. Everyone else on our team is either new to the high school level or is completely new to the sport. So, we expected this meet to be a huge learning curve. It was, but every one of our runners exceeded our expectations, and my Assistant Coach Kizzire and I were proud of them. It was a great way to kick off the season,” said Coach Erickson.
“I thought it went very well. I thought our kids competed well for the first meet of the year. We have a lot of kids this year that have never ran cross country, so I was not sure what to expect but they did good for the first meet of the year,” said Kizzire.
Hemingford accumulated 85 points, finishing just behind Alliance taking fifth place and found out where their competition sits for the opening meet of the season.
“We were extremely proud of how our kids competed today. We always tell our runners that this meet is a great starting point to see where we are at and how we need to adjust going forward. You never know how other teams will look coming into the season and it was nice to see where our kids stood amongst the competition,” said Hemingford Head Coach Jayme Clark.
The following are the Results for Alliance and Hemingford in the Scottsbluff Cross Country meet:
Alliance:
Men’s Varsity – 5000 Meter
3. Benjamin Cassatt-Reina 19:01.67
21. Mario Rodriguez 20:27.32
42. Christian Soriano 22:15.79
43. Evan Merrihew 22:22.63
47. Graydon Zahn 22:46.33
Women’s Varsity – 5000 Meter
37. Ona Mansilla 27:09.05
60. Emma Hughes 30:01.61
63. Ryleigh Mashburn 30:41.81
74. Jamie Brooks 34:43.17
76. Jenna Messersmith 35:59.13
Hemingford:
Men’s Varsity – 5000 Meter
25. Zane Hinman 20:42.52
29. Creel Weber 21:17.36
32. Drew Varner 21:35.14
34. Boady Hunter 21:36.86
65. Gavin Bell 25:15.68
66. Nathan Randolph 25:24.74
76. Taren Hunter 27:45.41
Women’s Varsity – 5000 Meter
7. Dakota Horstman 22:48.54
16. Carlye Kresl 23:45.99
27. Aurora Hinman 25:17.99
55. Madisen Meek 29:05.76
56. Serenity Dillard 29:16.98