By ALEXANDER SIMONE

Staff writer

Almost all county cross-country runners improved their times last week, with Marion and Goessel competing at Hesston, and Hillsboro running at Wamego.

Heidi Grimmett dropped her time under 22 minutes for Marion, finishing in 21:20.8.

Marion boys were led by Gavin Wasmuth, whose time of 18:08 was sixth among freshmen.

Tristen Dye and Christopher Beery were next for the Warriors, and each cut 40 seconds off their best times from last year. Dye finished in 19:02.4, and Beery came in at 19:20.8.

Cooper Bailey came in at 21:32.1 with Hayden Mendoza closely behind at 21:38.4. The team was rounded out by Wyatt Helmer, who dropped his personal best to 24:51.1.

Goessel had several runners finish with close times, as Jacob and Timothy Schrag, Dawson Duerkson, Ben Olson, and Patrick Rust each finished between 18:40 and 20:40.

The boys finished 11th out of 29 schools.

Cassandra Rust, Braylyn Hoopes, and Alyssa Boden cut their times, too, finishing between 26:20 and 28:10.

Hillsboro had productive finishes at Wamego, led by freshman Levi Allen with a finish of 18:44.04.

He was followed by Tristan Reed at 18:48.45. Caleb Deiner’s 21:00.91 and Carson Linnens’ 23:14.09 rounded out the Hillsboro boys.

Emersyn Funk continued her strong start with a 22:37.3 finish, followed by Moriah Jost at 24:37.6, freshman Trudy Hein at 29:32.07.

The schools will converge Thursday to race at Herington.

Contributions to this story were made by Delbert Peters.