Coverage area kicks off cross country season
OA Athletics
Oldenburg’s Carson Hartwell earned his first victory of the season on Saturday, winning at Batesville in a time of 18:37.
Batesville picked up a team win on its home course and an Oldenburg Academy senior and Batesville sophomore were individual winners as the Bulldogs, Twisters and South Ripley were all part of a season-opening four-way meet on Saturday morning.
East Central was also part of the day and the Trojans won the boys meet with 35 points. Batesville took the girls meet after putting together 19 points.
Batesville placed second on the boys side after 40 points and South Ripley scored 53 points for third place. Oldenburg did not have enough runners to qualify for a team score on either side of the meet but Carson Hartwell did lay claim to an individual first place finish, winning the boys race in a time of 18:37. He beat South Ripley senior and second place finisher Carter Yelton by 15 seconds. Yelton sat at 18:52.
The Bulldogs top finisher was junior Levi Essick who finished third in 19:03. Freshman Cael Luhman ran fourth in his first high school meet at 19:09. Batesville’s final five runners who accumulated points all finished no worse than 21st. The freshmen trio of Duncan Fish, Luke Raver and Rhett Gibson went 11th, 13th and 14th. Their times were 20:26, 21:04.1 and 21:04.8 respectively.
Another freshman in Timothy Quillin was 17th in 21:33 and senior Ayden Meyer placed 21st in 22:28.
After Yelton, South Ripley had two other runners in the Top 10 as senior Mason Bascom finished seventh at 19:49 and junior Saxton Hite crossed in 10th at 20:26. Domonic Carter ran a time of 22 minutes to take 19th, Owen Andrews finished 31st in 25:56 and Ronan Kearney placed 38th in 30:09.
Oldenburg’s only other runner for the boys was Logan Harshbarger who was 22nd in 22:31.
Batesville and East Central were the only two scoring teams in the girls meet. Ava Wade of the Lady Bulldogs was the individual winner in a time of 20:36, which paced an impressive day for the blue and white.
The other six to score points for Batesville all finished in the Top 10. Junior Jayla Bedel was runner-up in 20:44, Francesca Myers ran fourth in 22:20 and Caitlin Raver followed in fifth at 22:31. Places eight through 10 in order were Paige Allgeier, Aubrey Weberding and Audrey Dieckmann. Their times were 23:20, 23:49 and 23:54 respectively.
Three runners competed for Oldenburg and South Ripley did not compete in the girls meet. For the Twisters, junior Josie Wenning was seventh in 23:12, classmate Alaina Jensen took 13th in 26:57 and Anessa Uhlarik finished 25th in 35:09.
Batesville runs in Decatur County on Thursday night and South Ripley heads to Shelbyville on Saturday for the Small School Invitational. Oldenburg runs that same day at the Richmond Invitational.
