The West Platte cross-country team closed out the regular season on a strong note at the Richmond Invite on Oct. 19.
Jonah McGivern bounced back from a rough conference meet to finish fourth overall with a time of 17:53 at the Richmond Invite on Oct. 19.
Both the boys’ and girls’ teams finished a solid third place in the race, with the boys getting beat out for second by Smithville by one point and the girls claiming third by one point over Smithville. The weather made it a pretty good day to run in with temperatures in the 50’s and the wind not blowing too hard.
In the girls’ race, Julia Pattison finished in fourth place overall thanks to a great kick at the end. Pattison outraced a Christ Prep girl to the finish line and the West Platte junior finished in 21:18.
Addison Bailey continued her fine freshman year with a 20th place finish – getting the last medal at the meet – by beating a girl across the line by 0.3 seconds. Payton Reber ran third for the Lady Blue Jays with a time of 24:23, which was her second-best time of the year.
Kaitlyn Reinke ran next, finishing 31st in her best time of the season in 24:50 and Brie Elmore capped off the top-5 with a new PR time of 25:17, good for 36th place. Maggie Howard ran her way to her second PR in a row, taking 11 seconds off of last week’s run to 27:17, and Blair McHenry finished out the Blue Jays’ squad with a time of 29:08.
“Julia and the girls are in the running to advance to state out of districts next weekend,” West Platte head coach Mike Lowe said. “The top-4 teams advance and if the girls can run like they have the last couple weeks, they have a really good opportunity to make it back to Columbia for a second run on the state course.”
In the boys’ race, Charlie Kinslow took off fast out of the gate and led the race from start to finish. His 16:54 time was nearly 1:00 ahead of the second-place runner.
Jonah McGivern bounced back from a rough conference meet to finish fourth overall with a time of 17:53. Tristan Newkirk ended in fifth place with a time of 17:58.
“It’s so awesome to have three runners consistently run under 18 minutes. The boys are positioned to finish near the top in the district race next week and move on to the state race the next weekend,” Lowe said.
Noah Rees ran fourth for the Blue Jays and finished 20th, with Thomas Deffet having his best race in a month coming in 38th out of 81 with a time of 21:02. Hutch Bartee ran 21:28, followed by Antonio Laguna crossing in 26:32.
The district race is at Platte Ridge Park on Oct. 29. The boys’ race will begin at 9:30 a.m. followed by the girls’ race at 10:00 a.m.