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| Photo by Rachel Ellis |
| Coach Tyler Warner has a lot of pride in this year's gang of Badger cross country runners, who ended a good regular season in fine style last week at the Ben Castro Kellogg Invite, bringing home more hardware to grace the trophy case. |
The 5k course navigated the perimeter of the golf course and took place almost entirely on natural surfaces. Competing teams included Bonners Ferry, Kellogg, Priest River, Coeur d’Alene Charter, IC Academy, Lakeland, and others.
The Ben Castro Invitational, named for the legendary late coach of Kellogg Cross Country, divided races by gender. Girls started the rainy afternoon of races following the combined middle school race.
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| Photo by Jack |
| Junior Jordan Young, shown here running a week earlier in Sandpoint, is poised to earn her place in the Badger record books and be ranked among the top elite runners in school history. |
“Cross country records are tricky,” said Coach Tyler Warner. “A lot of it depends on the course, unlike track, which is always uniform. Still, when you have girl runners breaking 20 minutes you are usually entering the realm of the elites.”
Young placed first overall and now has the seventh fastest time that has been run in Idaho Women’s 3A Cross Country.
Coming in second place was freshman Abigail Gorton at 20:30. Ada Bonnell was the next Badger across at 23:28. Lauren Stidham broke her previous best by 50 seconds with a time of 24:05. Elisabeth Cowley also ran a personal best 26:14. Rayan Naylor was next with a 27:27 and Serenity Fahey rounded out the Lady Badger squad with a personal best 27:43.
In team scoring the girls placed third behind first place Lakeland in 1st and Coeur d’Alene Charter in second.
The boys race commenced shortly thereafter.
Dawson Thomas ran his best time of the season with an 18:20, followed by Eric Ellis at 18:39, which was also a season best.
Austin Donn ran his best time as well with an 18:42. Sam Gorton came in behind Donn at 18:44. Nick Magdaleno and Ryne Rae both broke the 20 minute barrier for the first time with times of 19:46 and 19:53 respectively. Alex Urbaniak also continued his senior campaign by posting a personal best 22:58. Brady Bateman was behind Urbaniak at 24:14, also a personal best.
Cameron Rae and Nathan Olsen finished close together with times of 24:36 and 24:45. Finally for Bonners Ferry Will Colson ran a season best 25:07. The boys finished in second place behind Priest River.