Warrior Cross Country Runners Bring Home 10 Medals

Neligh-Oakdale's cross country teams had 10 medal winners in the Niobrara-Verdigre Invite on Monday.

The varsity girls' team tied for third place, finishing behind last year’s #7 Stanton and Class C Hartington, according to Coach Rick Eickholt.

"All four varsity runners medaled, led by Kasi Groserode with an impressive second place finish behind last year’s fourth place finisher at the state meet," Eickholt said. "Jayda Chance cracked the top 10, finishing in 9th place with senior captain Courtney Pellatz and Brittany McConnell grabbing the final two medals with their 19th and 20th place finishes."

He said the boys were unable to field a full team, but the trio was led by Michael Pienke who earned a 15th place medal. Connor Knievel completed his first cross country race and came in 35th, followed by Jordan Chelle’s 43rd place finish.  

"I was pleased with our efforts at the varsity level, but we have a lot of work ahead of us if we want to reach our end of the season goals," Eickholt said.

Junior High

The girls junior high team snared 4 of the top 10 medals, led by Haley Kerkman who finished in 3rd place, just 4 seconds behind first.  

"Haley’ s 1600-meter time was 6:09, which breaks our old junior high record held by Jayda Chance in 2012 by 27 seconds," Eickholt said.

Teammate Madi  Groserode finished in 5th, just 6 seconds off of the former school record, he said. First time runners Emma Bixler crossed the line in 7th followed closely by Jordan Knievel. Just missing the medals were Adysen Boggs in 11th and Natasha Peinke, 13th. Rounding out the junior high girls team were Lesley Luna, Hailey Bixler and Nadia Peinke. 

On the boys side of the junior high competition, 7th grader Eric Claussen captured the 10th place medal in his first junior high cross country competition.

The next meet for the Warriors is the Boyd County Invitational on Thursday at the Butte Golf Course.

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