While the calendar turned to October, and fall-like weather finally hit our neighborhoods this weekend, the cross-country runners got one final summer run in.
This past Thursday, on a picture-perfect 70-degree afternoon, hundreds of runners ran at Grace Lutheran Bible Camp for the annual Jim Hetrick Invitational.
Five Comet boys ran in the varsity section of this race, and as a team they placed 18th of 19 eligible teams with 495 points.
Freshman Jonathan Juarez continues to pace this squad and he posted a personal record on Thursday with a 20:21.2 time. This was good for 82nd place.
Following him were senior Joaquin Elizondo (99th — 21:06.9), sophomore Cameron Elizondo (103rd — 21:13.7), junior Manu Garcia Blanes (106th — 21:15.4) and sophomore Ben Tharp (124th — 23:38.6).
AJ Willey of Bettendorf won the individual race in 16:46.6 while Clear Creek-Amana (65 team points) edged out the hosts from Central DeWitt by one point.
On the girls’ side, freshman Madelyn Deahr was the lone runner for the Comets.
Like Juarez, she also set a personal record by finishing this race in 24:07.3, nearly two minutes faster than her previous best finish in a varsity race.
Nobody was faster than Clinton’s Camryn Sattler who was the only girl to go sub-19 on Thursday (18:54.5). She won the competition by nearly 30 seconds.
Bettendorf and Davenport Central tied with 74 team points, but the Bulldogs won on a tiebreaker due to Emily See finishing in third and Blue Devil Dylan Moeller coming in fourth place.
The Comets raced in their conference meet on Tuesday, October 10 and have just their district meet on Thursday, October 19.