Perryville XC sweeps Woodland Invite

Three Perryville boys' cross country team won the Woodland Invitational, as three runners placed in the top five, including all five of its scoring runners in the top 12 on Thursday, Oct. 10 near Marble Hill.

Perryville (28 points) held off host Woodland (36 points) for first in the team competition. Kelly was third (84 points), followed by Saxony Lutheran (100) and Puxico (102).

PHS finishers were Bair Hopkins (16:40.72, first), Clayton Bauwens (17:24.2, third), Porter Johnson (17:49.1, fifth), Micah Brown (18:12.8, ninth) and Preston Johnson (18:17, 12th).

The first 18 boys’ finishers crossed the line in less than 19 minutes. A total of 50 boys completed the varsity race.

Top finishers for Woodland High School included Calvin Layton (17:19.2, second), Hayden Vangennip (17:39.1, fourth), Drew Garner (18:00.6, sixth), Seth Wilkinson (18.21.1, 13th and Rawlend Filer (18:50.2).

Rounding out the boys’ varsity in the top 10 were: Kelly’s Truman White (18:02.4, seventh), Puxico’s Jett Hancock (18:11.1, eighth), and Bernie’s Hunter Massey (18:13, 10th).

“We did pretty well,” Woodland coach Ryan Layton said. “We wanted to win our own meet. We knew it was going to be hard. Perryville is here. They’re a bigger school. They’ve got solid teams on the varsity side, both boys and girls. I thought overall, that was a solid showing for us.”

“The first big thing that’s different for me as the host meet is that my attention is divided,” Layton said. “As far as a smaller meet like this vs. a Notre Dame or Farmington coming up, we’re looking at kids having an opportunity to medal that normally don’t medal, or win a race, that they maybe wouldn’t have an opportunity to win one of those races, maybe a kid that’s top-5 or top-10 kid at a big meet can win this and learn to run for the front. (It’s a chance to) learn how to win.”

Perryville High School’s girls' varsity squad had five runners in the top 15 on its way to a first-place finish at an Oct. 10 cross-country invitational hosted by Woodland. The PHS girls collected 22 points, which was ahead of Woodland (36), the only other school fielding a complete team. Top PHS girls were Lucy Blythe (23:46.6, fifth), Alexa Hagan (24:03.7, seventh), Anna Rehagen (24:21.6, eighth), Gwynivere Newbrough (24:32.1, ninth) and Josephine Lohmann (25.24.2).

Those placing for WHS were: Faith Rouggly (22:10.9, second), Abigail DeWitt (24:35.1, 10th), Lauryn Shetley (24:35.6, 11th), Shirley Hendricks (25:44.1, 16th) and Hannah Vawter (30:12.7, 31st).

Bernie’s Ella Harris won the girls’ race (21:35.90), which had 37 finishers. The rest of the top 10 were Faith Dreyer of Saxony (23:14, third), Leopold’s Elise VanderMierden (23:32.9, fourth), and Sarah Thurmond of Kelly (23:57.2).

Woodland competes in the Stoddard County Invitational, a seven-school race, on Saturday, Oct. 12.