On the one hand, the Reeths-Puffer boys cross country team had a lot of personal victories at Saturday’s Ottawa Hills Invitational.
The Rockets had a grand total of 15 runners who posted significantly better times in the race than they did last year, or set new personal best times.
On the other hand, the race was crowded with a lot of talented teams and runners, and the final standings were not kind to the Rockets.
R-P finished 22nd out of 23 teams with 709 points. The Rockets’ top runner finished 155th in the huge field of 217 runners.
Gabe Luna
Traverse City West won the competition with 85 points.
Gabe Luna, R-P’s top runner, had a time of 18:42, which was 1:18 faster than his time last year on the same course.
The rest of the R-P top five also improved their times, most of them by a lot.
Landon Learn, who came in at 19:02, was 24 seconds faster. Kyron Novak (19:11) was a full 2:58 faster.
Landon Learn
Kasyn Novak (19:24) was 2:41 faster, and Bo Blair (20:06) was 2:24 faster.
Seven other Rockets also cut at least a full minute from their times from last year, or from their best time from this year.
“These guys went out hard and hung on to the pace for as long as they could,” said R-P head coach Darin Grant. “We would have liked to see a higher team place finish, but the effort of the guys can be seen in the significant drop in their times compared to last year's race here, or the newer runners’ personal records.
“It was a great day to be a Rocket!”
