The cross country team brought home a first place trophy as they competed in their fifth meet of the year on Thursday, Sept. 29. The meet took place at Gardner-Edgerton High School on a course well known for having a rough terrain.
The girls placed second out of four teams as they ran in their fourth 4K of the year. Sophomore Bailey Parke led the team with a time of 17:12 that was good enough for second place. Following Parke was senior Kati Strickland who ran a 17:35, putting her in fourth place. The next three runners finished in a close pack which consisted of sophomores Holly Peterman and Mariah Kalma, and junior Olivia Talavera.
The varsity boys brought home another well earned first place trophy as five of the top ten runners were from Mill Valley. Sophomore Landon Scott led the way running a 17:47 and placing in third. Trailing Scott was senior Connor Mehalovich who ran a 17:53, placing fourth. In fifth place running an 18:08 was junior Chris Gillespie, followed by fellow runner junior Stephen McEnery. Finishing closely behind McEnery was junior Andrew Eigsti, who placed tenth running an 18:42. All of the Mill Valley runners medaled by finishing in the top-20 runners. Sophomore Graham Wilson ran an 18:52 and received 13th place and sophomore C.J. Meeks placed 19th running a 19:54.
“The terrain was pretty jacked with a lot of massive drop-offs,” Eigsti said. “It was a big factor of our performance. We didn’t do as well as we wanted, but had good depth.”
The JV boys did their part in showing the team’s strength as a whole, finishing in first place and finishing with a perfect score. The first eight finishers of the race were all Mill Valley and the first five finishers all medaled. Winning the junior varsity race was sophomore Bobby Hellon who ran an 18:50.
“JV did pretty good,” Hellon said. “We worked as a team and had a good amount of runners in the top ten. Overall, we had good results.”
The cross country team next competes at Shawnee Mission Park at 4:15 for the Cat Classic.
