Weiser girls place first at SRV Conference cross country meet

The Weiser High School varsity girls cross country team placed first at the Snake River Valley Conference Invitational last Wednesday on their home course.
 The weather conditions at race time were decent, if not a little on the cool side for a cross country race. The 5,000-meter course at Weiser’s Rolling Hills Golf Course was challenging as always.
 The Weiser girls placed first in team results, followed by Fruitland in second place and Homedale in third place. Parma finished in fourth place. Payette had individual runners compete but did not field a full varsity girls team.
 Weiser coach Scott Hale said the girls ran good races on a cool day. Some runners missed recording a season best by seconds.
 “I think they did superb considering how difficult our course is,” he said.
 Ellie Walker and Kierra Hoobery ran a close race and finished in the top five out of a field of 35 varsity runners. One second separated their times of 23.53 and 23:54, respectively. Libbie Rynearson also cracked the top 10 with a 10th place finish and a time of 24:37.
 Other Weiser girls who finished the race included Stephanie Bodett (24:46), Emily Abramson (25:51), Ellie Eames (26:39), Ashlyn Walker (27:01), Rachel Galligar (29:57), Elizabeth Horton (30:38) Leah Ankarberg (30:40) Emily McLaughlin (31:03) and Jaclyn Dunn (31:34).
 Parma senior Megan Hancock won the race. Fruitland runners Addison Concidine and Mackenzie Malson finished second and third, respectively. Due to a timing problem, there official times were not posted.
 In team scores for the varsity boys, Parma placed first, followed by Fruitland in second place and Homedale in third. Weiser placed fourth in front of Payette.
 Weiser senior Nate Lattin continues to improve his times. Lattin placed in the top 15 out of a field of 45 runners at the Weiser meet. Despite a tougher course, he posted a season-best finish of 19:31.7, a full six sconds faster than last week at the Crosby Invitational at TVCC.
 Weiser’s varsity boys all ran strong races. Other finishers and their times included Colton Foster (20:45.48), Tyler Walker (21:07.52), Ben Hathhorn (21:12.11), Coyler Chandler (22:35.88), Koen Webb (23:30.85), Levi Huston (24:53.48) and Aaron Despain (26:16.50).
 Parma senior Stetson Beus won the boys event with a time of 17:37.76. Matthew Randall of Homedale posted the runner-up time of 17:59.17. Fruitland’s Atticus Anderson ran the race in 18:05.16.
 The cross country runners will compete in one more regular season meet on Wednesday, Oct. 16, at the Winston Tilzey Invitational at West Park in Nampa.
 The SRV 3A district competition will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 22.
 Hale said due to scheduling difficulties, there’s not many practices left where the team can really train hard before the district competition next week.
 “The days we do have we’ve got to take advantage of, and trust in our training and in our team,” Hale said. “It’s about time to rest up and be sure we take care not to overtrain anyway.”