By DELBERT PETERS

Staff writer

Goessel High School senior Laird Goertzen finished the tough state cross-country course Saturday at Wamego in 19 minutes, 1.86 seconds.

He finished 29th out of 93 runners in the 5K race in the class 1A competition. His finish this year was 21 places higher than last year and 12 seconds faster than a year ago. Goertzen has qualified to run at state all four years he has participated in cross country.

Brittny Czarnowsky, a Goessel junior, finished the 4K girls race in 17:55.13. She finished in 24th place out of 81 runners.