Otsego dominated among females and Saugatuck led the way for guys in the annual Allegan County cross-country meet Friday at the U.S.-131 motorsports Park near Martin.
Local teams were Martin and Wayland, with the Lady Clippers checking in fourth and Lady Wildcats fifth. Wayland guys captured fourth place and Martin was sixth. Hopkins, Fennville and Hamilton did not field teams in the competitions.
The top individual performer was, to the surprise of no one, Martin junior Veyda Conley, who checked in sixth with a school-record 5K time of 19:03.28.Defensing state champion Emma Hoffman of Otsego was medalist with a time of 16:33.86.
Rounding out Martin’s scoring were pack runners DueRae Sage 24th, Sara Schipper 25th, Riley Bender 26th and Emma Dettmann 27th.
Sophomore Abree VanDenBrink continued her conquest of the 20-minute barrier by checking in a with a time of 19:44.37, good for eighth place. She was followed by Madison Bumhoffer in 17th, Sophia Miller 35th, Elyana Jurkowski 37th and Marissa Ainsworth 47th.
Mason Fein again led the Wildcat boys with a time of 17:07.90, Ethan Manning was 14th in 17:17.96, Alberto Mandujando 23rd, Carter Bultje in 48th and Jackson Byers 49th.
Jeremiah VanHouten led the Martin boys by crossing the finish line in 18:29.90 for 23rd place, Jadon Dettman was right behind him in 24th in 18:32.47, Gari Salvador-Garcia 39th in 19:54.89, Hunter Hayes 41st in 19:57.73 and Xander Ruiter checked in 52nd.
Saugatuck’s 35 points total was four points better than runner-up Otsego. However, the Bulldogs ran way ahead of the rest of the field with just 19 points in the girls’ race.
