With only three days of rest after their superb performance at Pocahontas on Saturday, October 5^th, the Southeast Valley cross country teams competed at Lake City in the Brian Knapp Invitational on Tuesday, October 8^th. While the times were slightly slower the places were similar to Saturday’s meet indicating the more challenging course the Jaguars faced on Tuesday.

               Lincoln Akins led the boys’ team finishing 18^th in a time of 18:53 with teammate Owen Nuss not far behind in 21^st in a time of 19:04. Both Lincoln and Owen earned medal honors for the second consecutive meet. Carver Peterson (36^th, 20:25), Drew Dorsey (47^th, 20:48) and Logan Bintz (58^th, 21:26) rounded out the top five scorers for the Southeast Valley team score.

               The boys score of 176 points put them 8^th in the 12-team field. Sioux Central took the top team honors once again with a score of 68 points, followed by Denison Schleswig in 2^nd with 89 and scoring 109 points was Greene County in 3^rd.

               Carter Ganoe had the lone season and career PR for the Jags on Tuesday, completing the course in 22:29 to finish 71^st. Also competing in the boys’ race were Kyeo Augustine (62^nd, 21:39), Grant Farnham (69^th, 22:06), Caden Kaltschnee (75^th, 22:30), Oliver Riehl (94^th, 23:52), Evan Kuhn (114^th, 27:26), Ben Wanat (117^th, 27:58) and Kaleb Klein (121^st, 33:31).

               In the girls’ race, Katie Field continued to pace the team. Katie ran a 24:27 to finish 30^th overall; five spots out of medalist honors. Hailey Rees (46^th, 26:18), Brooke Peterson (48^th, 26:24), Autumn Jones-Popp (52^nd, 26:52) and Meia Hefley (53^rd, 26:57) made up the five scorers to combine for a team score 178 points, edging Greene County for 7^th place. Abbi Tucker (70^th, 31:36) and Amelia Christensen (74^th, 33:35) were the displacement runners in the race for Southeast Valley.

               Sioux Central also claimed the girls’ team title with 57 points, While Ridge View was second with 66 points and Alta/Aurelia was third with 71 points.

               The Jaguars will conclude their regular season on Thursday, October 17^th at Emmetsburg at the Twin Lakes conference meet. The high school girls will run at 4:00pm, followed by the high school boys at 4:30pm. The varsity teams will compete one more time on Thursday, October 24^th in the class 2A state qualifying meet to punch their tickets to state. The location of this meet has not been released.