Lady Panthers win home cross country meet, boys take
The high school girls head out onto the cross country course at Flower City Park Saturday morning.
by Mark Cheffey
The PHS girls cross country team won its home meet for the second year in a road Saturday.
The Lady Panthers finished with a score of 32 besting five other teams, including Monroe City (74), Mark Twain (84), Highland (93), Kirksville (96) and Marion County (104).
Palmyra’s Lauren Reid led the girls team with a fifth place finish.
“Everyone did great,” said Coach Nicholas Koetters. “We’ve tried emphasizing running and working together and the girls did just that. Our top five were all in the top 13 and they were only spaced out by 59 seconds which is amazing when you are trying to compete as a team at a high level.”
Meanwhile, the boys team took fourth out of seven teams, finishing with a score of 107, to finish behind Kirksville (21), Hannibal (72) and Monroe City (73), while placing ahead of Mark Twain (142), Winfield (143) and Clark County (149).
Palmyra’s Casey Hathaway (right) led the boys team with a 10th place finish.
Lauren Reid led the girls with a fifth-place finish as Marion County’s Delaney Straus won the girls competition.
Lauren Sheputis soon finished in seventh place, followed by Lydia Szarka, 10th, Bella Perkins, 12th, and Ally Noland, 13th.
“Lauren Reid had a great race to lead us and I thought Lydia Szarka bounced back nicely from last weeks race,” Koetters said.
Also competing for Palmyra were Emily Malone, 24th, Emily Jeffries, 35th, Chloe Kicks, 38th, Grace Krigbaum, 42nd, Lydia Gard, 44th, Sydney Bond, 53rd, Keri Schindler, 57th, and Emma Watkins, 59th.
“The boys finished fourth as a team, and I was pleased with that going against some good teams,” Koetters said. “We are young, but those young kids are getting better each day.”
Casey Hathaway led the Panthers with a 10th place finish, followed by Connor Bross, 26th, Jacob Barnes, 30th, Caleb Juette, 33rd, Talon Markley, 40th, Dakota Snyder, 46th, Kyle Jackson, 49th, Daniel Reid, 58th, and Christian Drebes, 67th.
Marion County’s Delaney Straus won the high school girls competition.
“Casey Hathaway did a great job of leading us again and ran a really smart race,”
Koetters said. “Last weekend he started too fast and died. This week he paced himself better and ran a good race and caught people as he went to finish in 10th place.”
Kirksville dominated with three runners finishing one, two and three.
The Palmyra girls middle school team took first place ahead of Hannibal, Winfield, Mexico and Marion County.
The Lady Panthers had four girls finish in the top 10, including Maiya Reese, fourth, Laura Noland, fifth, Kaitlyn Bode, seventh, and Jamie Triplett, 10th.
Marion County’s Maya Bock finished ninth.
In boys middle school action, Wesley Summers led Palmyra with 34th place finish.
Marion County’s Levi Wright finished second.
