Placing four runners in the top 10, Three Rivers’ girls cross country team edged Mendon at Tuesday’s St. Joseph County meet at Colon. The Wildcats scored 35 points and the state finals-bound Hornets finished with 39.
Sturgis’ Peyton Boughton claimed the individual title in 19:02, helping the Trojans take third with 62 points. Constantine (96) and Centreville (135) rounded out the team scores (White Pigeon and Colon didn’t have enough runners to register a team score).
Mendon’s Mary Leighton took second (19:43), and Three Rivers’ Alicia Schmidtendorff, was third (20:12). Jenna Gales (20:21) and Jenna Griffith (20:26) were fourth and fifth, respectively, for Mendon. Marley Guy finished sixth in 20:57 and Alyssa Speelman came in seventh with a time of 21:00 for the Wildcats. Jamie Barrett put the team over the top with ninth-place finish of 21:07.
Colon’s Skyler Harvey placed eighth (21:01) and Tieler Faulkner (Constantine) was 10th in 21:09.
“Hopefully we can continue to win each year,” Three Rivers girls coach Josh Bell said of back-to-back championships. “We had several strong races and many of the girls ran personal records tonight. Alicia ran particularly well; it was her best race ever with her personal record. She and Marley will be missed as our seniors but the younger girls will be ready to step up next year. It was a team effort though as Alyssa, Rain and Jamie and Carolyn getting ahead of Mendon’s runners where we needed them to be.”
For the boys, Sturgis, which is also headed to Michigan International Speedway Saturday for the state championship, ran away with the county title with 25 points for its seventh consecutive county championship. The Trojans snagged six of the top-10 spots. Mendon (69) was second, followed by Constantine (74), Three Rivers (77), Centreville (125) and Colon (176). White Pigeon didn’t post a team score.
Constantine’s Dave Jones and Isaac Hartley went 1-2 with times of 16:20 and 16:21, respectively. Shawn Bell led Sturgis in 16:36 for third place, trailed by teammates Terry Stahl (16:36.1), Daniel Steele (16:37), Trever Sprowls (16:37.1) and Grant Brown (16:40). The Trojans’ David Polzin (17:14) was tenth.
Michael Campbell (16:54) took eighth and Zach Darmofal (16:56) finished ninth for Mendon.