The strong West Liberty cross-country season continued on Monday as the girls’ and boys’ teams trekked out to 3-30 Golf and Country Club for the annual Bill Bails Invitational in Lowden.
Here, the Comet girls placed second out of four scoring teams while the boys took fourth out of eight scoring teams.
Six girls got into the varsity lineup in Lowden and two took spots inside the overall top ten.
Sophomore Addison Guerra took ninth place in 23:59.9 and sophomore Madelyn Deahr placed tenth in 24:30.3.
In third place for West Liberty, and 16th overall, was freshman Aileen Aragon who clocked out in 26:11.5
Sophomore Ximena Valenzuela placed 22nd overall with a time of 27:29.3. Rounding out the Comet lineup was junior Angelly Gonzalez (32:57.6 — 33rd) and senior Vanessa Burk (35:51.5 — 36th).
Central DeWitt won the girls’ meet with 21 team points while the Comets had 47. The other eligible schools for the team leaderboard were Brooklyn Guernsey Malcom (82) and Durant (84).
Saber freshman Ashlyn Appleby won the meet by being the lone runner to go under 21 minutes (20:54.4). In fact, her time was 58 seconds better than second-place Teryn Hansen from Northeast Goose Lake (21:48.5).
On the boys’ side, freshman Carlos Meraz continues his impressive freshman campaign. He placed second overall with a time of 18:05.2. Only Durant’s Race Starr beat him with a 17:49.8 time.
Finishing in second for the Comets was sophomore Jonathan Juarez, taking 16th overall with a time of 19:38.6.
Freshman Damian Gonzalez and junior Christofer Gomez-Velasquez were in lockstep this race and finished seconds apart. Gonzalez placed 33rd in 20:50.6 while Gomez-Velasquez placed 34th in 20:59.8.
Rounding out the Comets’ lineup were sophomore Isaac Aragon (24:41.1 — 57th), freshman Jessie Benitez (25:03.9 — 59th) and junior Cameron Elizondo (25:24.7 — 61st).
This was a brutally difficult course as only one runner out of 68 in the entire field set a personal record.
As a team, West Liberty battled through the tough conditions to place fourth with 120 team points.
Durant won the meet with 61 team points. The Wildcats were followed closely behind by Central DeWitt (70) and Bellevue (96).
Up next for the Comet runners is another Monday meet. On October 7, West Liberty will run in the Hillcrest Academy Cross-Country Invitational at Hillcrest High School.
Here, they will meet the teams from English Valleys, Fairfield, Hillcrest, Hartwick-Ladora-Victor, Iowa Valley, Lone Tree, Mount Pleasant, North Mahaska, Pella, Iowa City Regina, Wayland-Crawfordsville-Olds, and Wapello.
Just three more regular season meets remain before the Class 2A district race scheduled for October 24.
State qualifying meet assignments are expected to be released within the next week.