The fall sports season officially got underway Tuesday for some runners in southeast Iowa with the annual Hillcrest Academy Early Bird. Top finish for an area school came on the boys side where Winfield-Mt. Union were team runners up with a score of 42 points, Cedar Rapids Jefferson won the meet with 25 points. The Wolves were led by a pair of top five finishes with Gabe Hemsworth fourth in 20:08 and Kohlby Newsom fifth in 20:21. After the race, they talked with KCII Sports about the night. “We are at about the same level so we run together as a group. It feels good to get the first race finished, and do well, but this isn’t where we want to end up. We want to get better and get to state.”

Other runners for the Wolves inlcuded Jacob Haines 12th in 21:54, Lane Scorpil 13th in 21:55, Ty Scorpil 17th in 23:12, Jeff Maish 22nd in 23:59 and Anden Gipple 33rd in 28:16.

The WACO Warriors were third in the boys team standings with 72 points. Top WACO finisher was Wyatt Dennis sixth in 20:37. Other Warrior runners included Isaac Rich 18th in 23:27, Keiran Luitjens 19th in 23:32, Jonah Egli 20th in 23:46, and Mattias Luitjens 24th in 24:22.

Hillcrest Academy was fourth with a score of 86 points. Top runner for the Ravens was Collin Miller in eighth with a time of 21:36. Other Hillcrest finishers included Micah Gerber 16th in 22:26, Jesse Blossom 30th in 26:20, Quang Huynh 34th in 30:27 and Garrett Hurst 35th in 32:53.

Highland did not post a team score but the Huskies were led by Carlos Valenzuela in 10th with a time of 21:41. Other Highland runners included Jackson Schneider 25th in 24:37, Brendon Schnoebelen 31st in 27:38 and Andrew Lana 32nd in 27:53.

Lone Tree had three runners compete with Taylor Alberhasky leading the way in 21st place with a time of 23:57. Joey Birtcher was 27th in 25:40 and Jadin Grieser 29th in 26:26.

On the girls side, no area teams posted a score. The individual scene was led by Hillcrest Academy senior Leah Bontrager with an eighth place finish overall in 25:55. The senior has overcome a lot of adversity in the last year to get back on the course including multiple stress fractures, and mono at the end of this summer. She spoke with KCII sports after the race about how it felt to run Tuesday and what it took to get back on the course. “It has been a crazy off season with illness and injuries. It’s basically been just a whole recovery. It felt really good to be back out here again running and passing people. I wanted to get at least eighth here because that’s what I did last year, so I was happy to be able to do that again.”

The next highest finish came from Highland athlete Katelyn Waters. The freshman was 12th in 27:25. WACO had four runners compete with McKenzie Vradenberg leading the way in 13th place with a time of 27:27. Other Warriors included Hannah Dennis 14th in 27:34, Avery Waterhouse 20th in 28:59, and Justine Lynn 21st in 29:22.