The Hillcrest Academy Raven cross country team hosted their final home meet of 2023 Monday. The Raven boys and girls were the only area schools to post team scores. Pella won the championship on both sides of event. The Dutch girls with 16 points and the boys with 21. The Hillcrest girls totaled 165 points, finishing in seventh place. They were led by the top area individual finish as Marie Yoder went fifth in 21:01. Other Raven runners included Rya Scott 28th, Delaney Shaw 44th, Brynna O’Rourke 57th, and Niva Helmuth 70th. The Raven boys scored 256 points, paced by Micah Gerber in 28th at 19:41. Other Hillcrest runners included Jesse Blossom 43rd, Isaac Beachy 64th, Mason Swartzendruber 67th and Braden Hartsock 72nd. After the meet, Raven head coach Marty Gingerich talked about his team’s performance. Gingerich said, “Marie (Yoder) was solid, maybe 30 seconds faster than the Early Bird meet here. Rya (Scott), this is the most hills she’s ever seen in a cross country race and she did really well. Delaney (Shaw) also ran well, again on a challenging course. Brynna (O’Rourke) I thought had a good race. Niva Helmuth ran with us tonight. She wanted to see what it was like. This is our first time this season having five girls runners finish to have a team score. (For the boys), Micah (Gerber) and Jesse (Blossom) both ran well tonight. Isaac (Beachy) wasn’t feeling well tonight, but still ran a minute faster than he had the first time on this course. Mason Swartzendruber did well. He had a strong finish which is good to see. Braden Harstock was our fifth on the varsity.”

The Sigourney Savages were led by a 17th place finish on the girls side for Addison Yates in 23:42. Teammates Reanah Utterback and Cloee Wilson were 35th and 63rd respectively. For the Savage boys, Troy Klett was 20th in 18:54. Teammate Dawson Meyer was 68th in 23:48.

For Lone Tree, Vivian Zaruba was 36th in 25:44, followed by Jazmine Nino 51st, and Abby Zaruba 67th. On the boys side, Brock Nebergal had the top finish in 20:35 for 44th, with Taylor Alberhasky 59th and Joey Birtcher 73rd.