Longhorns benefit from meet on home course

Longhorns’ runners got their chance to compete in front of friends and family Thursday when Chase County hosted its yearly cross country meet.
For the girls team, Tessa Smith medaled with a 12th place finish. Class D No. 3 Peyton Paxton finished second behind Wray, Colorado’s Addison Jones, who holds one of Colorado 2A’s top four times this season.
Esmeralda Lopez, Paige Nickless and Faith Hauxwell rounded out the Longhorns’ team.
CCS Head Coach Carl Zuege said the girls team competed well and it was great to see Smith continue to medal.
“Running at home is always a boost. The most exciting thing is to hear from people in our school and community who have never seen a meet before—they are always impressed with the scope and the atmosphere of XC meets,” Zuege said.
The atmosphere was boosted by high school students who were able to attend and cheer on their classmates.
“It was really fun for our kids as most of our meets are during the day and very few of our other students ever get the opportunity to see our runners compete,” Zuege commented.
The boys team finished second behind 2022 Class D runner up North Platte St. Pat’s. CCS came in ahead of SPVA’s Hershey, Perkins County and Sutherland.
Zuege said he thinks SPVA is as strong as its ever been, which adds to the competition most weeks and should help to make CCS a much stronger team come district time..
The conference has Class D’s top three runners, Perkins County’s Mason McGreer, No. 1, and Elijah Goodell, No. 3, and  North Platte St. Pat’s Jarrett Miles, No. 2.
    “There are really some phenomenal young runners in our conference,” Zuege said.
Longhorn Haven Hauxwell was fourth at the meet. Brayan Reyes also finished in the top 10, taking ninth place. Also medaling were Navy Smith in 13th and Trevin Moreno in 15th.
Many Chase County runners knocked chunks of time off their personal bests again this week thanks to the route at the Imperial Country Club.
“Our course will be one of the fastest courses we run, along with Ogallala mainly because they both are pretty flat. So, I think we will see improvement each week but it may not be reflected in the times again until we hit the Ogallala course,” Zuege explained.
The Longhorns won’t have the benefit of an easy course Thursday when they head to the McCook Invite at the Heritage Hills golf course.
“The McCook course is probably the closest reflection of the state course that we see other than being on the actual state course. This week will be good hill work for us and I hope that everyone is excited for the challenge,” Zuege said.
One positive Zuege pointed out is it should be a little cooler than normal McCook meets.
Results from Chase County are as follows:
Girls team scores—1. Wallace, 20; 2. Mullen, 31; 3. Paxton, 64; 4. Cambridge, 68; 5. Wray, 82; 6. CCS, 91; 7. Bertrand, 98; 8. Hitchcock County, 108; 9. North Platte St. Pat’s, 111.
Individual results—1. Addison Jones, 20:26.02, Wray; 2. Peyton Paxton, 20:56.57, Mullen; 3. Ashley Robertson, 21:07.80, Wallace; 4. Dajana Garrison, 21:09.30, Wallace; 5. Ryleigh Hanson, 21:55.22, Wallace; 6. Harper Andersen, 22:14.12, Mullen; 7. Ainsley McConnell, 22:26.48, Paxton; 8. Elliana Robertson, 22:29.28, Wallace; 9. Ady Hampton, 22:42.41, Mullen; 10. Brenna Deterding, 22:44.04, Cambridge; 11. Natalie Jorgensen, 23:04.80, Paxton; 12. Tessa Smith, 23:18.34, CCS; 13. Chayse Keith, 23:20.18, Hitchcock County; 14. Riley Hegland, 23:38.45, Mullen; 15. Emma Elliott, 23:47.41, Hershey; Esmeralda Lopez, 26:08.48, CCS; Paige Nickless, 26:49.33, CCS; Faith Hauxwell, 27:21.15, CCS.

Boys team scores—1. North Platte St. Pat’s, 25; 2. CCS, 39; 3. Hershey, 46; 4. Perkins County, 53; 5. Bertrand, 94; 6. Cambridge, 111; 7. Sutherland, 124; 8. Paxton, 126; 9. Maywood-Hayes Center, 175.
Individual results—, 1. Mason McGreer, 16:07.18, Perkins County; 2. Jarrett Miles, 16:33.33, NPSP; 3. Elijah Goodell, 16:38.02, Perkins County; 4. Haven Hauxwell, 16:54.88, CCS; 5. Porter Connick, 17:41.33, NPSP; 6. Chase Moorhead, 17:41.62, Hershey; 7. Marcus Hernandez, 17:43.06, Bertrand; 8. Dimitri Pettit, 17:43.97, NPSP; 9. Brayan Reyes, 17:51.47, CCS; 10. Billy Tolstedt, 17:53.59, NPSP; 11. Kyle Finney, 18:02.74, Mullen; 12. Jordan Arensdorf, 18:09.44, Hershey; 13. Navy Smith, 18:13.85, CCS; 14. Ethan Elliott, 18:16.15, Hershey; 15. Trevin Moreno, 18:20.94, CCS; Andrew Wiest, 18:37.53, CCS; Spencer Kelley, 19:39.87, CCS; Lleyton McDaniel, 20:31.36, CCS; Connor Einspahr, 20:51.22, CCS; Kevin Dannatt, 21:13.14, CCS; Jesus Juarez, 21:13.52, CCS; Brandon Chavira, 21:26.96, CCS; Kris Burke, 21:58.45, CCS; 64. Chris Clark, 22:43.00, Garden County; James Bomba, 23:56.13, CCS.