Both the Wayland bo
ys’ and girls’ O-K Gold Conference cross country seasons opened Wednesday afternoon, with both squads finishing sixth.
The first jamboree of the season was held at 6he South Christian High School sports complex off Kalamazoo Avenue. The weather was uncooperative, being warm and humid.
Grand Rapids Christian won the boys’ meet with 26 points and East Grand Rapids was runner-up with 59. Wayland had 164 total points, ahead of Wyoming in seventh with 191.
Finishing first for the Wildcat boys and 35th overall, was senior Captain Jonathan Zuiderveen (19:42). Finishing second on the team was freshman Mitchell Hooker with a time of 20:43. Co-Captain Ethan Killips finished third for (21:15) and 54th overall. Freshman, Garret Kloska, ran fourth with a time of 22:55. He was followed by Ian Russell (24:42), Steven Mosher (24:53), Gabe Attruia, crushing his previous PR with a time of 25:03, Jacob Jelsema (25:11), Jacob Radmacher (25:37), and Jarod Geerligs (26:07).
The Lady Wildcats good a good look at just how good the O-K Gold is. After winning their own invitational and the Rocket Invitational last month, they settled for sixth place in the first league jamboree. Grand Rapids Christian edged East Grand Rapids by a single point, 41-42, to claim the top spot. None of the other league teams was able to score fewer than 100 points. Wayland finished with 140.
Leading the Lady Wildcats once again was junior Maggie Whitney who ran a course best time of 21:59, placing 15th. Senior Captain Emily Gray proved she’s recovering from her ACL surgery last year with a second team place and 24th overall. Junior Kaitlyn Paul was the Wildcats’ third runner finishing in 30th of 168 runners. Improving significantly was freshman Rylee Cronkright finishing as the 5th runner.
The Wildcats teams both will run at the Middleville-Thornapple Kellogg Invitational at Gun Lake at 4 p.m. Monday.
