McCool Junction runners second at Falls City

FALLS CITY — Both the boys and girls teams of McCool Junction Cross Country came back to York Co. with second place hardware on Thursday from the Falls City Invite.
Both top runners for McCool Junction finished third in their respective races as Shelby Real ran a time of 17:26, and Preston Bolte was clocked at 18:01.
In the team race on the girls side, Johnson County won the event with 19 points, McCool had 33, and third went to Hiawatha in the four team field. In all nine teams participated, but only four teams fielded full squads.
On the boys side, Hiawatha had four of the top five runners and won with a score of 12, McCool Junction was a distant second with 44, and Falls City was third with 58. Nine teams participated and seven of those figured in the team scoring.
For the girls, taking seventh place was Jackie McIlravy with a time of 18:12, in 23rd was Caitlyn Sanner at 21:55 and rounding out the scoring was Rachel Boland with a time of 22:21.
McCool’s Brandon Suhr was ninth over with a time of 19:25, picking up a top 15 finish was Brady West with a clocking of 20:05 and in the fourth scoring position was Travis Doht with a 21:22 for 24th place.
“All of the kids ran strong today,” stated McCool Junction head coach Ryan Underwood. “I thought our boys and girls teams really competed well. It was exciting to bring home our first hardware of the year.”
Improvement over last years times were turned in by; Bolte (1:17), Real (1:27), McIlravy 1:58), West (3:19) and Doht 41 seconds.
“Hopefully we can continue to build off the momentum we have gained the last couple of weeks,” said Underwood. “We need to run our best at next weeks districts.”
The Mustangs will run their districts on Thursday, Oct. 16 at Branched Oak Lake with the host school being Malcolm.