Cross country hits stride at conference

By: 
Charity Wessel

Custer High School’s cross country squad secured high finishes in the Black Hills conference meet in Spearfish Oct. 6.
The varsity girls team posted a third place team finish (42 points) and the varsity boys score took a team fourth place (59 points).
Custer senior Ramsey Karim was back to race in the varsity girls 5K and placed second with a time of 19:23.
Brit Wheeler also contributed to Custer’s varsity girls team score with her ninth place run, and personal record, of 19:54.
Keira Alfson also set a personal record at 20:20 and Mattea Marshall clocked in the 5K at 21:13.
Both Sierra Swanson (21:17) and Hailey Woodward (22:09) set season records in this conference 5K.
The varsity boys team  consisted of six total runners and two placed in the top 10: senior Gage Grohs placed fifth (16:19) and Drew Lehman placed sixth with a personal record of 16:27.
The remaining Wildcat varsity boys runners all placed personal records: Kian Rusch (18:08), Sean Shipp (18:16), Kai Rusch (18:54) and David Lewis (18:55).
These varsity boys runs led them to claiming a fourth place team finish and Custer head coach Karen Karim said she was proud of so many Wildcats topping their personal running records amid tough teams at this last meet.
Karim said the personal record runs are “stepping stones to going to state” and she also noted how both Custer boys and girls junior varsity teams beat out other schools to place high in junior varsity team scores.
The girls junior varsity took a team second place score (28) and the boys junior varsity earned a team score of third place (38 points).
Alex Van Horn was a boys junior varsity top scorer who took the 5K’s second place at 18:33 and junior varsity runner Alice Sedlacek placed fifth while setting a personal record at 22:41.
The cross country season next performs Oct. 13 at the Region 5A meet at Hart Ranch outside Rapid City.
Karim said she sees Custer’s lineup doing well because they’ve been “competing as a team” moreso in the past few meets.
Karim said Custer’s teams will need to place in the top three next week — and with the teams’ fast personal run times at the conference last week, she said Custer has optimistic potential to continue to state.

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