Sturgis’ boys cross country team finished second Saturday at the Southwestern Michigan Athletic Conference championship meet. Led by Shawn Bell’s third-place finish (16:20), the Trojans scored 66 points to trail only St. Joseph (46).
Peyton Boughton finished fourth for the Sturgis girls in 19:30, helping the team place 11th with 303 points.
Shawn Bell
“The boys team had an awesome team day with 12 of 17 runners (five of seven in the varsity race) running lifetime-best times,” Trojans coach Emerson Green said.”
Grant Brown (16:26) was sixth, Trever Sprowls took 12th in 16:38, Daniel Steele was 18th in 16:58 and Terry Stahl (17:15) crossed the line in 27th. Bell, Brown and Steele ran to all-conference honors. Both Bell and Brown, along with Sprowls, posted lifetime bests. David Polzin (49th overall) and Daniel Tetzloff (64th) also turned in career times in 17:49 and 18:17, respectively.
Click here for full meet results.
“We now have five runners under 17 minutes,” Green said. “The team is very focused and has been working towards next weekend (Division 2 regional at Jackson) since the beginning of the summer. We will need all five of them to do it at the same time if we are going to have a shot at a regional championship (last was in 1989). I am really pleased with the progress of our 6-8 runners. David, Daniel and Nicholas are all at lifetime bests and are pushing the top 5.
“Nicholas Franks, Cesar Becerrill, Brendan Sprowls, Aaron Rueppel, Mason Stevens Tory Stahl and Trevor Jacobs had lifetime best runs for the Trojan JV squad. I am pleased with the development of the entire JV squad. We had some minor injury illness issues that are finally over and the squad is competing all out every meet.”
Boughton made the all-conference team for the Sturgis girls. Andrea Hernandez Garcia had a personal record at 22:24 for 64th place. The girls improved 34 points over previous competition vs. the East teams.
“The team is getting healthy and the veterans are beginning to approach the previous year’s best times,” Green said.