It was a damp morning out at the Platte Ridge Course as West Platte hosted the 14th annual West Platte Invitational Cross Country meet which included the 8th KCI Conference championship race.
Lawson was the big winner of the day walking away with all four championships. The West Platte Boys finished 2nd to Lawson in the Conference race and 4th overall in the Invitational out of 16 full teams. The Girls finished 3rd in the KCI meet and 6th overall in the invitational.
Phillip Pattison continues the trend of great runners for West Platte as he became the 5th different WP male runner, and 6th overall, to win the KCI conference title in its 8 years. Phillip set a new PR with his effort on Saturday running an excellent time of 17:26, bettering his old time by 30 seconds. Phillip was the overall winner of the WP Invitational as well, becoming the 4th different Blue Jay, for the 5th time overall, to win the race.
Ryan Pattison continued his late-season surge with a 17th place finish overall and 6th in conference. Ryan set a new PR also by taking 35 seconds off his time and coming in at 18:50. Charlie Kinslow ran a good race and fought through some side stitch pain to finish 23rd overall and 10th in Conference which made him the final all-conference runner. Isaac Helmich finished 4th for the Blue Jays coming in at 58th place closely followed by Hutch Bartee who finished 60th overall. Isaac and Hutch finished 21st and 23rd in the conference race. Tristan Newkirk ran his best race of the year to run 6th for the Blue Jays with a new PR time of 21:49 and Coy Taylor ran his best time of the year finishing in 22:15.
The girls squad also had a good day running very well with several runners setting season or career PR's. Lexi Elmore again paced the squad finishing 8th in Conference and 20th overall in a time of 23:04. Katie Groom was a welcome surprise with her run on Saturday morning as she ran 2nd for the Blue Jays taking 1:14 off of her old PR. Katie finished 29th overall and 12th in Conference with a time of 23:26. Sophia Rush continues to regain her running legs after sitting out several races with a bad ankle and ran 34th overall, 14th in Conference, with a season-best time of 23:58. Katy Tharp ran 4th for the ladies finishing in 24:05 which was her best time in the last two seasons. Gaia Carugati was the 5th runner for the team, crossing the line in her best time ever, 25:43. Addison Rinehart also PR on the day, by .02 seconds to run 6th and Olivia Marquart crossed in 29:28 to be the 7th runner for the girls team.
All in all, these times really set the stage for a very competitive district meet which will be held at Platte Ridge on Saturday Nov 2nd. Lawson is the prohibitive favorite in Class 2 for both the boys and the girls, but both WP teams have a strong shot at finishing 2nd and advancing onto the state meet. Come out and support your WP CC team and root them to state!