EV runners brave conditions, set PRs

Conditions weren’t ideal, with some other cross country meets being canceled in the region, but the meet in Williamsburg on September 25 still went on as scheduled. Boys’ and girls’ varsity teams from English Valleys braved the chilly, muddy and partially drizzly conditions, resulting in multiple new personal records.

The varsity girls ran first, led by their young leader Carly Stannerson. She ran in the middle of the pack for much of the race and wound up finishing in 26th place, in a field of 47 runners, after running a time of 22:13. The next Lady Bear to cross was Madison Koehn, taking 31st place with a time of 23:18. Megan Glandon was next, running a time of 23:58, finishing in 36th place.

The other two Lady Bears who competed were Clara Mews and Nevaeh Briggs. Mews finished in 42nd place, running a time of 24:58 and Briggs took 47th place after running a time of 28:29. The Lady Bears ended up taking sixth place as a team, finishing just a couple points shy of fifth place.

On the boys’ side, Jacob Glandon had a strong showing, coming up just shy of another top-10 finish on the season. Glandon ended up taking 12th place after running a time of 17:50. The next EV runner to finish was Bryson Grove, who ran a time of 19:53, taking 35th place.

Luis Gonzales and Baylor Wiseman rounded out the team as Gonzales finished in 43rd place with a time of 21:24, while Wiseman finished with a time of 25:41 to take 50th place.

“They did awesome, given the conditions. They all PR’d,” EV coach Breann Coffman said. “I’m very proud of them. They’re at that point in the season where they start to drop their times a little bit each meet. I want to see them keep moving forward and cutting down on their times.”

English Valleys next competition was October 1 at Iowa Mennonite High School.