Norwalk, St. Paul JH teams compete

The Norwalk Middle School cross country teams opened with a pair of meets on Aug. 18 at the Keystone Icebreaker Invitational, and the Seneca East Tiger Classic on Aug. 23. At Keystone, both NMS teams placed eighth overall. Layla Koch led the way with time of 14:00.97 to finish 13th overall. She was followed by Ivy Leavitt (14:47.77), Malayna Sullivan (15:51.41), Aubrielle Cruey (16:07.29), Krista Bergman (19:04.57), Liliana Mora (22:26.73) and Autumn Compton (22:54.57). The boys were led by Drew Hamernik (12:16.91), who finished 11th overall. He was followed by Zane Daniels (13:39.80), Ethan Jones (13:48.15), Parker Nickoli (13:51.17), Caleb Cross (15:45.89), Parker Good (16:30.89), Madden Sigg (16:46.21), and Leeland Davidson (19:05.54). This past weekend at the Tiger Classic, Adelinn Sitterly ran to a fifth-place finish in 13:16.1 as the NMS girls finished fourth. Following her were Koch (14:15.44) in 10th and Harper Gilbert (15:00.35) in 28th. Sullivan (15:30.30) was next, followed by Leavitt (15:57.11), Cruey (16:02.86), Bergman (17:54.11), Mora(20:17.65), and Compton (24:28.86). Hamernik paced the NMS boys, who placed seventh as a team, in 18th with a time of 12:44.2. Next was Daniels (13:45.4), Nickoli (14:05.4), Good (14:09.88), Jones (14:37.51), Cross (15:18.95), Sigg (15:27.93), and Davidson (20:02.81). The St. Paul junior high team also competed in the Tiger Classic. Eighth-grader Mary Dvorak earned a medal by placing 18th out of 55 runners with a time of 16:08. Seventh grader, Allie Weilnau, who also competed in her first race ever in the sport, placed 23rd to earn a medal in 16:26. On the boys side, eighth-grader Franklyn Wright ran a personal best time of 13:13 to place 32nd out of 93 runners. Seventh grader Kevin Shumaker, made his debut and ran a time of 13:24, good for 35th out of 93 runners. The Flyers return to action on Sept. 6 at the Tiffin Carnival.