Girls second, boys third in opening meet

The Hillsboro High School cross-country season got off to a strong start Thursday, with the Trojans opening at Lindsborg.

The girls team finished second to the hosting Vikings overall while the boys finished third behind Hesston and Smoky Valley.

“Both of our teams really worked hard during the offseason,” Trojan coach Kodi Panzer said. “It was a great way to start the season.”

High school races were shortened to two miles and junior high races to one due to near 100-degree temperatures.

That didn’t stop the Trojans’ sensational sophomore Emersyn Funk from displaying how hard she worked over the summer.

Funk finished as runner-up to the Vikings’ champion Grace Lambert by 44 seconds, pacing the Trojans with a 14:54 time.

Ainsley Duell rounded out Hillsboro’s top five finishers with a fourth-place time of 15:20 and Moria Jost secured a top-10 finish of 16:10 for eighth.

Karley Loewen closed out the freshmen/sophomore competition in 20:07, good for 16th out of 18 finishers.

In junior and senior girls’ competition, Millie Sechrist secured a medal with a 19:16 time for 10th out of 11 runners.

Junior Caleb Diener led the junior/senior boys’ division with a third-place finish of 11:55, while Tristan Reed didn’t finish the race.

Pedro Nieto fueled the loaded freshmen/sophomore boys’ class, taking eighth out of the 28 runners in 13:42.

Nicholas Cunningham broke into the top 15, running an 11th-place time of 14:14 while Nathan Lopez rounded out the top 20 with a 20th-place 16:14.

Three-hundredths of a second was all that kept Josh Diener out of the top 20 as he was 21st in 16:17.

Panzer’s pair of eighth graders competed well, too, with Trudy Hein coming in at 7:46 for fourth out of nine finishers.

Levi Allen was rarely challenged as a seventh-grader, and his eighth-grade season is off to the same start.

Allen breezed past Hesston-runner up Layne Clark by nearly half a minute, with a winning time of 5:41.

The Trojans will travel Saturday to the site of the state meet, Wamego with high school action all that’s slated.