In the West Platte cross-country team’s last 2021 regular season meet at Richmond, the Blue Jays finished in second place and the Lady Blue Jays were led by Julia Pattison’s first-place individual finish on Oct. 20.
West Platte’s Tristan Newkirk finished in seventh place at the Richmond Invitational on Oct. 20.
The boys’ team finished with 61 points, just edging out a Smithville team, while Christ Prep Academy finished with 22 points. West Platte’s Charlie Kinslow won the Richmond Invitational with a time of 17:19 beating the second-place finisher by 20 seconds.
Tristan Newkirk was the seventh out of 82 total runners to cross the finish line and Ryan Pattison finished in tenth place on the day for the Blue Jays. Jonah McGivern ended in 18th place and Isaac Helmich took 25th place to qualify for the last individual medal, while Thomas Deffet placed 30th overall in a career best time of 21:07.
In the girls’ race, Pattison faced a state challenger in Alex Sharp from Brookfield High School and the Blue Jay sophomore was up to the challenge. At the 2,000-meter mark, the West Platte runner led by only six seconds, but at the 4,600-meter mark she had stretched that lead to over a minute and won the race with a time of 20:16.
Kaitlyn Reinke finished 20th overall out of 57 girls, running a time of 25:09. The next Blue Jay to follow was Maggie Howard, setting her PR in 28:45.
Lina Hennies finished the 5K with a time of 29:18 and Olivia Marquart finished her West Platte career running a season best 36:17. West Platte’s next race will start the postseason, which is the Class 2 Sectional 4 Meet at Missouri Western State University on Oct. 30.
This year, there are 22 schools in each sectional and the top four finishing schools, and the top 30 individuals will advance to the state meet. The boys will run first at 9:00 a.m. and the girls will compete when that race is over, which is scheduled at approximately 9:35 a.m.