March 29, 2024

CMB girls win another team title

Raider boys finish second behind ranked Hawks

STATE CENTER — Collins-Maxwell/Baxter’s girls cross country team continues to show why it is highly ranked in Class 2A. The Raiders boys also showed they can be pretty good, too.

The CMB girls won for the fifth time this season with another dominating effort, while the Raider boys finished second but only trailed 2A No. 3 South Hamilton by 15 points at the West Marshall Invitational on Tuesday evening.

In the girls race, all seven varsity runners finished in the first 10 positions. The Raiders scored 16 points, missing a perfect score by one position, and cleared host West Marshall by 34 points.

“Our girls competed hard tonight,” CMB coach Jerry Meinerts said. “It was good to see our 5-6-7 girls in the top 10 as well. We’ve still got of work to do, and we need to stay focused on improving and continue dropping those times.”

Meinerts felt the hotter-than-normal temperatures affected some of his runners. The CMB boys still placed its five scoring runners in the top 18. The Raiders scored 57 points in second, while South Hamilton scored 42 to win the title.

“Our top five guys ran great tonight,” Meinerts said. “I was pleased from top to bottom on their effort at the course today. We just need to keep dropping those times and not be satisfied with where we are at.”

Sophomore Brenna Thomson ran one of her best races of the season to win the individual title in the girls’ race. She finished in 21 minutes, 24 seconds to best her teammate, and former West Marshall Trojan, Ashlee Johnson by more than a minute.

“Brenna looked strong today and just took off and ran a great race by herself without anyone pushing her,” Meinerts said.

Johnson was second in 22:50, sophomore Lauren Ratliff placed third in 23:08, senior Heather Jessen came across in fourth in 23:16 and sophomore Shasta Moody rounded out the scoring runners in sixth with a time of 23:28.

Senior and Collins-Maxwell High School Homecoming Queen Winter Brown finished eighth in 24:42, while freshman Holly Jessen was 10th in 24:53.

Freshman Logan Berg finished ahead of sophomore Ian Thomson for the second straight meet in the boys’ race. Berg was two seconds faster in sixth with a time of 18:31. Thomson was seventh in 18:33. Junior Carter Fricke was 10th in 19:46.

“Logan and Ian ran great as always,” Meinerts said. “Carter is starting to close the gap.”

The final two scoring runners for the Raiders were junior Noah Rhoades and sophomore Josh Bruntz. Rhoades was 16th overall in 20:17, while Bruntz was 18th in 20:46. Freshman Carter Davis finished 24th in 22:19 and senior Brady Ross ended up 27th in 22:47.

The Raiders run at 4:30 p.m. Monday in the Nevada Invitational.