MIDDLEFIELD—Kirtland runners continue to show improvement as six Hornets set season best times at the Cardinal Invitational on Saturday.
On top of the fast times, Lauren and Sydney Snyder both finished among the top 15 runners in the girls’ race.
“Obviously, the goal was for the Snyders to be in the top 15 and the other thing we’re starting to look at is we’ve got a lot of bouncing around for the top 10 on the team,” said Kirtland coach JP Moran. “We’re trying to solidify coming into October who our top seven are going to be. We had the full team on Saturday too, so that was nice.”
Lauren Snyder finished in 20:53.94 to place 11th and Sydney Snyder was right behind her in 12th place with a time of 21:08.65. Their top 15 finishes helped the Hornets to finish sixth overall in the girls’ race.
Andrea Frankel finished 40th with a time of 23:57.59 and Ellie David was 50th with a time of 24:19.44. Emily Crebs (24:39.90), Ninah Johnson (24:46.4), Sabrina Rahz (25:02.05), Holly Samf (25:52.77), Katie David (25:59.49), Zoe Gregory (28:27.29) and Hannah Pastwa (40:34.00) also represented the Hornets in the girls’ race.
Gregory completed the race with her left arm in a sling and Ellie and Katie David, Johnson and Rahz all ran season best times.
“It was a beautiful day on a good course so I’m pretty happy overall with sixth,” Moran said. “We beat Grand Valley, which I was happy about, and we were only a few points away from the teams in front of us. We were just 11 points out of fourth, so I can’t complain about that.”
Jake Grdadolnik (18:43.04) and Kirk Brauer (23:09.85) ran season best times in the boys’ race.
Konnor Duncan (18:59.09), Colton Zanko (20:44.74), Andrew Schneider (21:40.78) and Nick Briggs (22:06.94) also ran for the Hornets.
“Jake got out there and ran a season PR and Konnor wasn’t too far behind Jake. I’m happy with him,” Moran said. “Kirk, I can’t ask more of him. He ran his best. Nick and Andrew are learning every week and improving. We’re not where we want to be quite yet but I’m very happy with improvement seeing.”
