By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The field at the Great Bend High School Cross Country Invitational is not only getting bigger, it's also getting better. Lake Barton course record holder Katelyn Rupe and teammate Kaylie Shultz took the top two individual spots, but Great Bend cruised to the team championship with just 22 points. Bishop Carroll ran second with 75 points, and Salina South scored 130 points for third.
"I think I did well," said Lady Panther senior Eliana Beckham, who placed eighth. "I think our whole team did well. We had six in the top 15 so I think that's really exciting."
Salina Central's Rupe missed her course record set last October by 17 seconds but still won the meet by 39 seconds in 17:41.9. Shultz, who has broken most of Rupe's middle school records in Salina, ran second in 18:20.9.
Senior Addy Nicholson paced the Lady Panthers in third overall in 19:55.04, 13 seconds ahead of the fourth-place finisher from Hays. Great Bend junior Marissa Boone placed in 20:12.6.
"Katelyn and the new freshman, they're extraordinary," Nicholson said of her competitors. "There's no beating their talent so I just worry about myself."
Lady Panther senior Makenzie Premer is slated to play for the varsity volleyball team Thursday evening in Garden City. She opened the day with a 3.1 mile run, staying with Nicholson for the first half of the race. Premer was headed for a top-five finish before stumbling to the finish line in seventh with a time of 20:22.7.
"At the 200, I could feel my legs starting to turn to Jell-O," she said. "I looked back to see where the girl was and I saw she was coming so I tried to speed up and my legs just couldn't. I just collapsed because they felt like Jell-O. I had to tell myself to finish because I was not going to quit with 30 meters left to go. I haven't run under six minutes in a mile in practice so it was definitely eye-opening to see what that was like."
Senior Eliana Beckham ran eighth in 20:58.6, and sophomore Sienna Smith grabbed the final Lady Panther points in ninth in 21:01.5. Senior Morgan Beckwith placed 15th in 21:34.2, and freshman Teegan Guerra made her varsity debut with a 27th-place finish in 22:40.2.
The small schools ran alongside the bigger schools Thursday morning. Hoisington freshman Tristin Compton led that pack in 22:23.1, good enough for 26th overall. Ellinwood junior Heidi Brauer ran second in the smaller classification in 25:24.6, and Lady Eagle senior Allison Ricker finished third in 25:36.3.
