No. 3 PCM cruises to meet title in season opener at Knoxville

KNOXVILLE — The state-ranked PCM girls cross country team got off to a strong start in its season opener on Monday.

And two newcomers on the boys’ team finished in the first six positions as the Mustangs finished first and second, respectively, at the Knoxville Early Bird Invitational at Pine Knolls Golf Club.

Class 2A No. 3 PCM won the girls’ meet championship with 20 points.

Class 1A No. 2 Chloe Glosser of Pekin won the girls’ 5K race, but the Mustangs grabbed the next six spots and put all seven varsity runners in the top 10.

Pekin (62) edged Knoxville (63) for second place and Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont (94) was fourth in the four-team field.

Abi Teeter, a two-time individual state qualifier, was the runner-up behind Glosser, who won the race in 19 minutes, 2 seconds.

Teeter’s time was clocked in 22:39. The next four Mustangs were separated by only 18 seconds.

Darbey DeRaad (24:21), Bailey Wheeler (24:36), 2A No. 27 and two-time individual state qualifier Lila Milani (24:37) and Ali Hilsabeck (24:39) came in 3-4-5-6 as the final scoring runners.

Annie Ford (25:27) placed seventh, while Jodi Jungling (25:41) was ninth in her varsity debut as the two non-scoring runners.

Knoxville edged PCM by four points in the boys’ race. The Panthers grabbed the top three individual places and scored 37 points, while the Mustangs finished 5-6-9-10-11-12 and scored 41 points.

Pekin (56) finished third and EBF (110) was fourth in the four-team field.

Class 3A No. 8 Isaac Rankin won the boys’ 5K race in 17:04.

Owen Osterhaus led the Mustangs in fifth. His time was clocked in 18:33. Brenden Lahart (18:43), two-time individual state qualifier Coby DeRaad (19:29) and Kash Fischer (19:30) were sixth, ninth and 10th, respectively.

Rylan Edgington (19:59) was the final scoring runner in 11th. Camden Lahart (20:00) was 12th, Cademon Burkett (20:20) finished 14th and Kolby Clark (21:19) placed 15th as non-scoring runners.

Brenden Lahart and Camden Lahart made their PCM debuts after transferring in from Albia in the offseason. It was the varsity debut for Burkett.