Led by a third-place finish from senior Jenna Stanbrough on the girls side, the Emporia High cross country teams each finished in sixth place on Saturday at the Manhattan Invitational, the opening meet of the season for the Spartans.
“Many of our athletes were competing for the first time in a high school cross country meet and were very nervous,” EHS coach Mark Stanbrough said. “They survived the meet and should have less anxiety next week.”
Jenna Stanbrough finished her 4K run in 16 minutes, 9 seconds. The Spartan girls’ next-best runner was Abigail Chiroy, who finished 28th with a time of 17:44. Abbey Davies finished in 37th with a time of 18:17, Joslyn Barton clocked an 18:31 time to finish 42nd and Cindy Meinholdt finished 55th with a time of 20:07.
“Jenna established good position early and ran in the second or third position the entire race,” Mark Stanbrough said. “Abigail followed the race plan by starting conservatively and moving up strong throughout the race.”
On the boys side, Tyler Tilton led the Spartans, finishing the 5K run in 17:27 to place 19th. Jack Heim finished 34th with a time of 18:31, and Matt Fry ran what Mark Stanbrough called the best race of his career, finishing 36th with a time of 18:35. Drew Detwiler finished 45th at 19:02, Donny Tennal finished 57th at 19:41 and Matt Wayman finished 75th at 21:11.
“Matt started near the back but continued to pick off people the entire race and ran with great determination,” Mark Stanbrough said. “(The boys) ran solid as a group but will need to work on staying tighter as a pack.”
Emporia's girls finished with 126 team points, 26 points out of fifth place. The boys finished with 167 points, six points out of fifth. Washburn Rural won the team championship on the girls side, scoring 47 points. Lawrence scored 51 on the boys side to take that title.
The Spartans will be back in action this Saturday when they host an invitational at Jones Park beginning at 9 a.m.
“As a team, I think we are off to a good start,” Mark Stanbrough said. “We have a lot of work to do on both the physical and mental part of running, but we have several weeks to accomplish our goal and run well in the championship meets at the end of the season.”