8:38 p.m. CDT, September 15, 2012

The Bishop Carroll girls and Wichita North boys took top honors at the Wichita Southeast Invitational Cross Country Meet Saturday during a cool and cloudy morning.

Carroll’s girls’ cross country team finished first with a score of 23, with Kaelyn Balch taking first and five other runners finishing in the top 10. Maize and Wichita East took second and third place among varsity girls’ teams.

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Balch, who ran the course in 14:54.9, said the chilly weather conditions helped her excel on the Cessna Activity Center course, because she loves running in the cool.

“The hills were tough, because we don’t have a lot of hills in Wichita,” Balch said. “And there were some places where I had to run around the mud, but it was a fun course.”

Balch said this race was a good measuring point, as it was halfway through the season.

“The goal right now is state, so I’m just trying to peak up at state,” she said. “I’m never satisfied with races, but I just want to keep moving forward and keep improving.”

Carroll’s Katherine Dillard, Amanda Reggeti, Emily Woods, and Victoria Reggeti also placed in the top 10 among the runners, coming in at second, fifth, eighth, and ninth, respectively.

Maize’s Deidra Walker and East’s Carlin Greene placed third and fourth.

Carroll cross country coach Ran Nielsen said he was happy to see his top five runners place in the top 10.

“Everybody’s getting faster than they were at this time last year,” he said. “Everybody’s getting to where they need to be, so we just have to keep pushing ourselves," Nielsen said.

Nielsen said this race allowed the Carroll teammates to evaluate one another before Nielsen takes the team’s top seven runners to Rim Rock next weekend.

“It boosts the girls’ confidence, and we have pretty good competition right now among our team for our varsity positions,” he said. “It’s going to be a good Saturday to see how the girls compete with one another.”

North’s boys’ team finished first with a score of 34, ahead of Maize and Kapaun Mt. Carmel. North’s Tristyn Villa took first at 16:31 and had teammates placing second, eighth, ninth, 14th, and 23rd.

“We knew it was going to be a pretty tough race,” Villa said. “There were a lot of teams out here today, but we had to take off, stay with the top runners, keep moving up, and not slow down.”

Both North and Kapaun runners had a great start and battled for good position throughout the race, but Villa and teammate J’Quon Williams, who took second, stayed ahead throughout the race.

“We know Maize is a tough team, so we had to battle for it today,” Villa said. “We knew that they were going to push us, but at the end, we had to give it our all.”

Both Villa and Williams said they hope to break the 16-minute barrier during the rest of the season, and use Saturday’s race as a building block for the rest of the season.

“I was just trying to get out there and run, because I didn’t feel too good before the race,” Williams said. “But, I knew my teammates would be out there with me—Tristyn, Jeremy (Brittain), and Nico (Hernandez)—and basically just stay strong through the whole thing.”

Brittain and Hernandez placed eighth and ninth, respectively. Kapaun’s Nolan Hesse took third;
Southeast’s Jeff Masood, fourth; and Maize’s Brooks Rummery, fifth.

North cross country coach Mike Pope said he was happy with his team’s performance, and said his goal for Saturday was to see how well his team competed against Maize, which beat a ranked Manhattan team last week.

“They tend to go out a little conservative, but I’m really happy with how they competed and pushed themselves,” Pope said. “It was good to see how we performed before we go to Rim Rock next weekend.”