Marysville’s Avery Murphy is shown competing during the Bob Reall Invitational at Lancaster on Saturday. (Photo submitted)
The Monarch boys and girls cross-country teams traveled down to the rolling hills of Lancaster on Saturday for the annual Bob Reall Invitational.
The Lady Monarchs placed third in their race, while the boys were sixth.
Both squads ran strong races against solid competition on a difficult course.
“The Lancaster course and competition give us a chance to test our racing toughness after a few weeks of heavy training,” said MHS coach Luke Sundermeier. “Overall, the teams responded well and competed hard. Things are building for the bigger goals next month.”
Dublin Coffman captured top honors in the girls meet with 53 points.
The Lady Shamrocks were followed by Newark-108, Marysville-115, Worthington Kilbourne-135, Lancaster-144, Woodford County-150, New Albany-171, Westerville North-177, Watkins Memorial-185, Dublin Scioto-186, Reynoldsburg-257, Wheeling Park-332, Logan-342 and Northland-450.
Bry Hothem of MHS was eighth with a time of 20 minutes.
She was followed by Bailey Gross (ninth, 20:07), Emerson Bautsch (17th, 20:58), Alyssa Rodman (39th, 22:14), Kaylee Morton (42nd, 22:29) and Maggie Zweizig (46th, 22:36).
Coffman won the boys meet with 57 points.
The Shamrocks were followed by Lancaster-62, Worthington Kilbourne-87, Westerville North-99, Wheeling Park-102, Marysville-128, New Albany-203, Athens-284, Chillicothe-287, Reynoldsburg-302, Newark-306, Woodford County-334, Watkins Memorial-365, Whitehall-413, Logan-449 and Northland-489.
The top seven runners for the Monarchs were Preston Herring (11th, 16:54), Jack Flanagan (14th, 17:03), James Heap (24th, 17:39), Blake Murgatroyd (33rd, 17:51), Tyler Heap (48th, 18:11), Brian Boston (49th, 18:11) and Aiden Grome (56th, 18:23).
Cannon Moser led the open boys for MHS, finishing 15th in 19:01. Kylie Andrews led the open girls with a 16th-place clocking of 24:17.