PLEASANTVILLE – The Montezuma girls have a runner to keep your eyes on at the junior high level.
Eva Anderson won the middle school 1.5-mile race at the Pleasantville Cross Country Invitational on Monday, Sept. 15.
She won be almost a minute and eight seconds, which is quite a margin in any kind of race.
Eva has a group of junior high girls who are packing tighter as they follow her lead.
‘The junior high girls closed the gap with Grand View Christian and Lynnville-Sully significantly from Thursday’s meet to today,” Coach Kevin Gartman said. “That sets up up for what should be a fun head-to-head showdown with Lynnville-Sully for the conference title. It will be a fun next month,” the coach said.
Montezuma’s varsity girls competed hard, also, with Vivian Cook placing 33rd to pace a seventh-place team finish.
“We’re not perfectly healthy, but we’re gritty and competing well. I’ll take that all day, Gartman said.
As for the boys, “we’re continuing to grow together and I’m proud of how this group is chasing goals,” the coach said.
The Braves placed sixth of 14 teams with Dayton Reif leading the way with a 26th-place finish out of 100 runners.
Pleasantville CC Invite
Varsity Boys 5K
Team Scoring – 1, Chariton 19. 6, Montezuma 196. 6th of 14 teams.
Montezuma runners – 26, Dayton Reif 19:34.63. 32, Cade Lowry, 19:55.49. 37, Linkyn Bru, 20:29.28. 53, Luke Benson, 20:56.36. 82, Caio Araujo, 24:08.34. 93, Nicholas Damon, 24:37.84. There were 100 runners.
Varsity Girls 5K
Team scores – Grand View Christian, 56. 7, Montezuma 147 (out pf 8 teams.)
Montezuma runners – 33, Vivian Cook, 24:26.23. 36, Claire Erselius, 24:4868. 37, Alexa Rose, 25:04.89. 41, Sophia Semprini, 25:20.25. 54, Haileah Eichenberger, 26:31.63. There were 85 runners.
Middle School Girls 1.5 miles
1, Grand View Christian 56. 3, Montezuma 71 (out of 8 teams).
Montezuma runners – 1, Ava Anderson, 9:41.41. 11, Brea Cheney, 11:40.94. 18, Teagan Sutherland, 12:05.47. 24, Addilyn Ross, 12:47.51. 29, Lucy Semprini, 13:2.49. 44, Karley Eichenberger, 14:26.25. 45, Alyssa Latcham, 14:26.94. 47, Elise Mathes, 14:34.32. (There were 72 runners).