United South Central ran away with the meet, but the Panthers were within 20 points of second-place Blue Earth. The Rebels won with 34 points.
NRHEG was sixth among nine teams with 116 points, but just three points shy of fifth-place Maple River, nine points short of fourth place Waterville-Elysian-Morristown/Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton and 12 points behind third-place LeSueur-Henderson.
T.J. Schiltz continued his outstanding fall season by topping the field with a time of 17:20 over the 5K course.
“T.J. ran pretty comfortable throughout the race and won by a large margin,” said Weber.
Adam Anderson, Raece Johnson and Josh Fleming were the second, third and fourth runners for NRHEG. Anderson placed 16th in 19:53, Johnson came in 24th in 20:34 and Fleming ran a 20:44 to finish 27th.
“I think it surprised Adam that he ran well enough to get onto the awards stand. We hope this is a trend that continues,” said
Weber. “Raece took a couple of minutes off of last week’s time, getting closer to Adam. Josh had a nice showing in his first varsity race. He ran aggressively for a freshman.”
Zach Mely had the final time to count in the team standings. He placed 48th in 22:13. Aaron Seath also ran with the varsity, finishing 59th in 26:24.
Girls
With just four runners, the Panthers could not compete in the team standings.
WEM/JWP won the girls’ race with 50 points, USC was second with 53 and Blue Earth finished third with 78 points.
Katharine Lewer paced the NRHEG runners again, just missing the awards stand. Lewer placed 23rd in the race with an 18:48 clocking over the 4K course.
Sandra Quezada was a solid second for the Panthers, finishing 36th in 20:02.
“Katharine took 40 seconds from her time,” said Weber.
Tina Quezada ran a 22:05 to place 48th, while Marissa Mortenson came in 49th in 24:06.
“Sandra and Tina were within 10 or 15 seconds of our time goals for this meet,” said Weber. “Marissa was much improved and put in a good effort.”
NRHEG’s Star Besser won the junior high race in 6:52.
The Panthers will run at Blooming Prairie Tuesday and at Janesville next Thursday.
